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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24192859">Landslide</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harryissuchalittleshit/pseuds/Harryissuchalittleshit'>Harryissuchalittleshit</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Imprint Anthology [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bisexuality, Cousins are both the worst and best people in the world, Everyone finds love, F/F, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Jacob and Leah heal together, Mackenzie learns to communicate what she wants, siblings make everything better and worst</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 00:55:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>31,876</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24192859</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harryissuchalittleshit/pseuds/Harryissuchalittleshit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Love is mourning.</p><p>It takes them years to figure out how to mourn, how to heal, how to grow up together. She learned to hold up her family once, he learned to forgive himself over forgetting his family. It takes their children for them to throw away their sadness and become better people.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jacob Black/Leah Clearwater, Mackenzie Black/Evander Masen, Mackenzie Black/Renesmee Cullen, Marcus Black/Lacsey Call</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Imprint Anthology [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1674550</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is different than any of the other stories I've written in this story. Leah's POV takes place in the present and moves through the summer, while Jacob's POV takes place in the past and moves through the years. If you have any questions, just ask.</p><p>Edited for clarity and grammar.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Landslide</strong>
</p><p>
  <em>By Fleetwood Mac</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Leah stared at her daughter.</p><p> </p><p>She stood shaking in between her brothers, and it reminded her of Rose, standing in between her and Seth at their father’s funeral. There were still details that she didn’t remember from that day, but some were the same today as they had been then.</p><p> </p><p>It was raining, because rain plagued the reservation, it haunted La Push, more than the ghosts that haunted her. Her daughter was wearing the same dress that she had worn, though it fit her differently, her daughter wasn’t cursed to be a wolf like her. The canoe was the same length as the one they sent her father off in.</p><p> </p><p>But this time, she remembered it.</p><p> </p><p>Leah stepped forward and pulled Mackenzie into her arms, holding her as she shook. She had three children, her oldest, Maxwell Jacob, and then the twins, Marcus Harry and Mackenzie Sarah.</p><p> </p><p>Her oldest was named after her husband, while the other two were named after their dead parents. She had her three M’s, unintentional but they were the names that worked for them.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s okay baby,” whispered Leah, as she held her only daughter to her chest. “It’ll be okay.”</p><p> </p><p>Leah looked at her daughter, her sons, her nieces and nephews, even her brother and sister and the in-laws. Her mother stood just down the row from her and Leah missed her father for not the first time. She missed him more than she could admit, would admit. She was the oldest, the oldest sister, the oldest cousin, and the oldest of three.</p><p> </p><p>Leah turned to Max.</p><p> </p><p>She took one of his hands in her own and squeezed tightly, he stood motionless, tall and quiet and motionless. Her son, was the same as her, she had thought once that they were different, too different, but it became clear quickly that they were two sides of the same coin. Her oldest son was just like her.</p><p> </p><p>Max was angry and bitter and stubborn, but he was also funny and sweet and kind. He was born early, but looking at him now, it was hard to tell that he had been so small.</p><p> </p><p>Her husband had become the Alpha under circumstances that weren’t ideal, but now Max was in that position. Her son was the Alpha, in charge of all the other wolves, of all the kids.</p><p> </p><p>Leah squeezed his hand again, and he looked at her with her eyes, and she was suddenly reminded of Rose taking her hand when they sent their father to sea.</p><p> </p><p>Leah reached out and took Marcus’ hand.</p><p> </p><p>Marcus was the most like Jacob. He was more stubborn than her, he was funny and cheerful and loud. He told horrible jokes and made everyone laugh, he made Mackenzie laugh until she was crying, he made Max smile and break his composure.</p><p> </p><p>Marcus was her second son, her second born, followed so quickly by Mackenzie, just like Seth and Rose. Though while Seth and Rose met each other years apart, Marcus and Mackenzie were always together.</p><p> </p><p>Always together until together ended, until Marcus phased and Mackenzie stayed the same. At nineteen, Leah had also wished that her life could stay the same, and that she didn’t phase. Mackenzie and Marcus were eighteen though, Max was the nineteen year old who was in her position, trying to hold his siblings together as the world spun around them.</p><p> </p><p>She felt Marcus let go of her hand, and then Max right after, both of them taking a half step closer to Mackenzie. Leah didn’t need to look to know that all three of her children were holding hands.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Love is standing next to your siblings and holding them up when you need to, even when you feel like you can’t. Can you do that Lee-Lee?”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>She hadn’t had the strength to hold Rose’s hand, or Seth’s. She hadn’t had the strength to hold herself, let alone anyone else.</p><p> </p><p>Leah looked up and found her husband’s eyes, dark and sad and angry and <em>heartbroken</em>. She knew what it was like to lose a parent, but to lose both, to lose a mother young and father after their children were grown, it was something that she would never know.</p><p> </p><p>Leah wrapped her arms back around Mackenzie, but kept her eyes locked with Jacob’s.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is death.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Jacob walked up the steps to the Cullens house, his nose wrinkling as the familiar sickly sweet smell hit him. Now that there was no threat of Sam, no threat of the crazy Italian vampires, no threat of anything, he felt slightly empty.</p><p> </p><p>“Jacob!” yelled Nessie, running up to him and jumping into his open arms.</p><p> </p><p>Jacob swung her around, just how she liked it. He always felt the pull to her, but something in his head was pushing away. He set her down on the ground and watched as she ran over to her parents.</p><p> </p><p>He thought about his own parents. It was weird that he kept thinking about them, but with Rachel home, with her and Paul being sickly around him, he couldn’t stop thinking about how happy his parents were. His mother baked cookies every Sunday for his father, she did so like clockwork, sending them off with his father during the week for council meetings and fishing trips and every time he left the house.</p><p> </p><p>His mother knew her father better than Jacob knew anyone, even Bella, even Nessie. His mother made everything light, she brought sunlight into their home, into their life. His mother was the reason that Rachel and Rebecca left, her death haunted them more than it would ever haunt him.</p><p> </p><p>“Jacob,” said Edward, and he had to keep all of his self-control to not rip his head off. He still hated him, and that part of him would never fade. “Jacob are you okay?”</p><p> </p><p>This piqued the interest of the others in the room and Jacob suddenly thought of Rachel. She had been crying, curled up on the cot bed in the living room with Paul rubbing her back when he left. He left as if he was in a zombie trance.</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t do it anymore,” said Jacob, he met gold eyes, over and over again. There were more pairs than he wanted to admit, than he ever wanted to be around.</p><p> </p><p>“What?” asked Bella, stepping forward, her hand reaching for him, “Jake what are you talking about?”</p><p> </p><p>“Do you know that today is the day that my mother died?” Jacob asked her, he was imagining her as a human, it made her being a vampire just a little easier. As if her eyes were brown and not gold.</p><p> </p><p>“Jake-“</p><p> </p><p>“Rachel is at home, crying her eyes out, like she does every year,” explained Jacob, sure that he was getting hysterical. “And I came here because I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to live with this kind of grief.”</p><p> </p><p>“Jacob,” said Carlisle, and Jacob glanced around the room, he suddenly felt claustrophobic, trapped in this unfamiliar life. “Do you need to talk about it?”</p><p> </p><p>“Nessie,” he whispered, and she was suddenly at his side.</p><p> </p><p>He needed her to tell him to go away, to break whatever hold that kept him here. He needed to be broken, like how Rachel and Rebecca always were on this day. Broken like how Rose was whenever she was left at their doorstep. Broken like how Seth and Leah felt every time someone thought of Harry in the Pack mind.</p><p> </p><p>He needed to be brought to his knees, broken and beaten.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Love takes many different shapes Jay-Bear, including letting go, trust me on that one.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“Jacob go home,” said Nessie, putting her hand on his. He got flashes of his face, through her eyes, Bella’s human eyes. “Don’t come back.”</p><p> </p><p>His heart shattered.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is mourning.</p><p> </p><p>Feeling the pain, the hurt, the life now gone from the world.</p><p> </p><p>Life is a series of mourning those you lost. It’s mourning yourself as you age and grow and change. It’s all about change.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Leah stared at the collection of her nieces, nephews, and children. Sara and Sorra sat the farthest away, always away from the others, from their siblings and cousins. Max and Raymond sat together, their heads close, both of them had been close to Billy.</p><p> </p><p>But none of them as close as Billie. She laid curled up on the floor, her head in Jessica’s lap, Mackenzie’s arms wrapped around her, with her face tucked into her hair. Children weren’t supposed to be this sad.</p><p> </p><p>“We should say something,” whispered Paul, right at her side. Leah found Rachel, standing beside Jacob, holding his hand and trying not to cry, both of them were trying not to cry.</p><p> </p><p>“To who?” asked Leah, taking a sip from the wine bottle that she stashed in the kitchen the last time she had come over. She wasn’t a drunk, an alcoholic, but she had a bottle of her favorite wine stashed in every Pack house, two at her brother’s.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know,” said Paul, his eyes sliding from Rachel to his youngest daughter. “I’m not good at comforting.”</p><p> </p><p>Paul had always been good at fighting, at getting loud and speaking his mind. Leah always liked that about him, his biting nature made him fun in a fight. But she didn’t need that side of him.</p><p> </p><p>Leah turned to Paul, putting her back to her children. Marcus was sitting on the floor behind Mackenzie, looking lost in her presence for the first time in his life. “You know that Billy always sang to them, he wasn’t the best with Rachel and Rebecca and Jacob growing up, but he was the best grandfather. I don’t think they ever managed to stay awake when he started singing.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not going to tarnish his memory like that,” said Paul, taking her wine bottle and throwing his head back.</p><p> </p><p>“Your daughter won’t think that,” said Leah, taking back her wine. “She loves the songs, she’ll sing them louder than any of the others. It’ll make her cry, it’ll make everyone cry, but that’s part of healing Paul. Trust me on that one.”</p><p> </p><p>Leah took a pull from her wine and left the empty bottle on the table beside her. She walked over to where the children were, her nieces and nephews and the children she bore. She sat down in front of Billie and sat her up.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Leah, sometimes love is about doing the things you aren’t good at, to make others happy. Sometimes it’s not all about you.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“Do you remember the song about the great flood?” whispered Leah, as she held Billie in her arms. She was fifteen, she had been named for her grandfather who she loved and cared for and wanted to live forever more than anything.</p><p> </p><p>Leah didn’t remember Sarah Black all that well anymore, but she remembered her spirit, it was the same in Mackenzie, in Jessica and Sara and Sorra, in Riley and Billie. The three Black siblings, Rachel and Rebecca, and Jacob, had six daughters collectively. Six beautiful and smart and funny and adventurous daughters.</p><p> </p><p>All who were hurting, not for a woman they hadn’t met, but for a man who helped raise them.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes,” whispered Billie, looking up at Leah with red rimmed eyes. Then as if magic existed in more than the wolves that lived in their hearts, Billie started to sing, and the rest fell in line. The second one dropped out, they were replaced by another.</p><p> </p><p>Leah let Paul take her place, Billie adored Paul as much as she had Billy. It made her miss her own father, miss the life she used to have. Before magic and wolves and the nightmares that kept her up at night, and the anger that kept her breathing.</p><p> </p><p>Leah went to Jacob, Rachel had gone to Paul, pulling Jessica and James, her oldest two to her. Rachel looked small with James tucked next to her, and Jessica looked even smaller.</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you,” whispered Jacob, as he pulled Leah into his arms. She nodded and wiped at his eyes, before wrapping her arms around his neck.</p><p> </p><p>Sometimes even the Alpha needed to bow his head, needed to be comforted and not the comforter. Leah played with his hair, he had stopped phasing after Marcus phased, and had started to let his hair grow out.</p><p> </p><p>He chopped his hair as well as he could with shaking hands when the news reached them. Leah had cleaned up his hair later that night, when the trembling had stopped and his breathing finally calmed enough that she knew he wouldn’t phase.</p><p> </p><p>“This wasn’t just for them,” Leah told him, before he tucked his head into her neck.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is running away.</p><p> </p><p>Sometimes you have to run away from your life, your friends and family, your home. Sometimes you need to leave to find yourself again.</p><p> </p><p>It’s not really running away if you can be found.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Jacob remembered running away when he was four.</p><p> </p><p>Back when running away was hiding in the little garage that his dad kept his canoes in, the ones that he craved and sold to their people. He remembered his mother being surprised when she found him curled up under a bench.</p><p> </p><p>He had been angry at Rebecca and Rachel for braiding his hair and calling him pretty. It had been stupid, so stupid to get upset about something like that, but back then, it mattered.</p><p> </p><p>Sarah Black, had picked him up as if he was a sack of potatoes and threw him over her shoulder, tickling him as she walked back to the house. She made him laugh until he cried, then put him on the ground and made him wash up for dinner. All of his anger, all of his tears, all of his hateful emotions disappeared and he sat in his mother’s lap that night when they watched TV.</p><p> </p><p>Jacob ran away when he was seventeen too.</p><p> </p><p>This time nothing escaped him. The Pack, his father, even when he came back one of his sisters was waiting for him. He had tried to make himself mourn for a girl he didn’t know how to love. Bella was his friend, nothing more, but it took him imprinting on her daughter to realize that.</p><p> </p><p>Renesmee was different though, he <em>had</em> to love her, <em>want</em> to be with her. His brain told him that what he felt was love, but his heart said different.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Love is easy, love is simple, remember that Jay-Bear.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>It was what his mother used to tell him. What she told him whenever he asked why she loved his father. Billy Black was a kind man, but he was also a force to be reckoned with when he wanted to be.</p><p> </p><p>Loving Renesmee Cullen hadn’t been easy, and there had been nothing simple about it. The two things that he was supposed to remember, supposed to know about loving another person, didn’t happen with her.</p><p> </p><p>He ran away again at eighteen.</p><p> </p><p>He was beginning to wonder if he was developing a habit. He didn’t know if it was good or bad, or whatever. But Hawaii was warm, the sand white and bright, and the water clear and blue and beautiful. Everything was beautiful.</p><p> </p><p>Rebecca took him in with welcoming arms, he got along better with Rebecca than Rachel, and they called each other every Wednesday on clockwork. Even when he first started phasing, he made sure to be home Wednesday night, no matter what.</p><p> </p><p>Solomon was a bit different, he complained about everything Jacob did, until Jacob got their truck working. After that, Solomon took him fishing with him most days and taught him how to surf on some of the others.</p><p> </p><p>On the other free days, Jacob spent his time with his nieces and nephew.</p><p> </p><p>Sara and Sorra, and Raymond. The twins remind him of Rebecca and Rachel, in almost a painful way, and he was happy that Raymond was closer in age to Sara and Sorra than he was with his sisters. He found peace with the three of them, with Sara and Sorra toddling around him, making him play with their toys. Raymond liked to crawl on his chest and fall asleep, curled up and calm.</p><p> </p><p>Jacob can’t remember ever seeing his sister so happy. Rebecca was living breathing happiness, with her three kids and husband and her life here.</p><p> </p><p>Her life away from La Push, away from her family, away from her home.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Love is supposed to be easy and simple Jay-bear.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Rebecca was just like their mother, she was an artist, she was a mother, she got married to the first guy she met outside of high school. She even cut her hair short after having Sara and Sorra, just how his mother cut her hair after Rebecca and Rachel were born.</p><p> </p><p>Rachel never would’ve told him that, but he wasn’t here to be reminded of Rachel. He was here to see Rebecca, to run away from all of his responsibilities.</p><p> </p><p>Almost all of his responsibilities.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is responsibilities.</p><p> </p><p>Grocery shopping, cleaning the bathroom, taking the kids to school…and picking them up after, all of the things that no one likes to do, but need to get done. It’s the busy work that no one wants to do but needs to get done.</p><p> </p><p>It’s him tuning her car when she thinks she hears a weird sound, and it’s her making dinner even though it’s his turn. It’s doing the dishes together at the sink, she washes and he dries. It’s all the little things falling into place, the chores that need to get done.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Leah sat beside Jacob, their kids were back home, sleeping on the living room floor together, curled up around each other. She put her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes, the waves brushed against her feet and she looped her arm through his.</p><p> </p><p>“Jacob,” she whispered, squeezing his hand in her own. She didn’t actually needed to say the words, both of them already knew. <em>I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry</em>.</p><p> </p><p>“We knew it was going to happen,” said Jacob, rubbing his face with his hand. “I just didn’t think that it would be so soon. When he couldn’t walk anymore… I thought it would be sooner, not now. I thought that he would be able to see Kenzie and Mark graduate, not…not leave the month before.”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s okay,” whispered Leah, bringing his hand to her lips. “It’ll be hard at first, for all of us, but it’ll get easier with each passing day.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Love can just be the easy stuff, memories and happy times. Don’t be afraid of that Lee-Lee.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“Rachel told me that there were a lot of hard days after our mom died,” said Jacob, and Leah looked up at him. He rarely ever talked about his mother, if at all. “I don’t remember much of that time, just mostly that she was there and then gone. That spring after the Volturi came, on the anniversary of her death, I don’t know what happened to me after I went to the Cullens.”</p><p> </p><p>“You went to Hawaii, for three months,” said Leah, squeezing his hand again. “Three horribly long months, I had to come and bring you back.”</p><p> </p><p>“And Max was born seven months later,” said Jacob, and Leah nodded, she felt her heart swell as he smiled. It was the first smile that she saw from him since the news reached them.</p><p> </p><p>“He was such a good baby,” said Leah, as Jacob let go of her hand and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer. “So was Mackenzie.”</p><p> </p><p>“She was the best of the three,” whispered Jacob, as he pulled her legs into his lap. “Always went right to sleep, always wanted to cuddle and babble, she never fought during feeding time.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh Marcus,” said Leah softly as she played with her wedding ring, twisting it on her finger. It was a habit that she didn’t know where or when she picked it up. “Can’t get him to stop eating now.”</p><p> </p><p>“He would only sleep if Kenzie was next to him, only wanted to eat if she was, only played with her if she was awake,” said Jacob rubbing his hand down her spine. “Now if we could get him away from Lacsey.”</p><p> </p><p>“We both know that’s not how this works,” whispered Leah, she never imprinted, but she had been surrounded by those who had, it had broken her heart when Marcus had.</p><p> </p><p>“It could work, it did for me,” whispered Jacob, and Leah nodded. “But he loved Lacsey before he imprinted on her, loved her like how I love you.”</p><p> </p><p>Leah grabbed his face and kissed him, letting them fall back into the sand. She kissed him and wrapped her arms around him and held him close. He had managed to pick her back up over and over again in the last twenty years, it was her time to repay the favor.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re not having another kid,” Leah told him, as his hand bunched up the fabric of her skirt, pulling it up farther and farther. “But if we have sex on the beach then there is a chance that will happen.”</p><p> </p><p>Jacob threw his head back laughing and Leah kissed his chin, his neck, and the little bit of his chest that was showing under his button up shirt. She had to practically wrestle him and the boys into nice clothes, into actual pants and button up shirts and jackets. She knew that Billy wouldn’t care, but it was what Billy had made her and Rose and Seth do for her father’s funeral.</p><p> </p><p>Leah had to repay him, had to give Billy something after he had given her so much in that time.</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you,” said Jacob, propping his head up under one arm, the other he kept tangled in her dress skirt. “Thank you for forcing us to dress nice and be respectful.”</p><p> </p><p>“Billy wouldn’t let us leave the house in anything less,” said Leah, resting her head on his chest and wrapping her arms around her neck again. “I thought it was a good thing to honor him like that. Mackenzie wore the same dress that I did.”</p><p> </p><p>“Rose wore the same thing, and I think Seth made Chris wear his old suit,” said Jacob and Leah nodded, she knew, she had tried to take in every detail, every little thing she could.</p><p> </p><p>“We should probably get home,” whispered Leah, moving to get out of his arms. He tighten them around her.</p><p> </p><p>“What if we did have one more? Would it be such a bad thing?” asked Jacob, and Leah rolled her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re not having sex on the beach, especially this one because last time we had twins,” said Leah, Jacob smiled and Leah giggled as his hand moved farther up the skirt of her dress.</p><p> </p><p>“We couldn’t do that to the kids anyways,” said Jacob, rolling them over and straddling her hips. “Could you imagine Max’s face if we told him that you were pregnant? I don’t think we would ever see him again.”</p><p> </p><p>Leah smiled, before crawling out from under him and getting to her feet. She held her hand out to him, but he only took it when he got to his feet. “Let’s go home,” he whispered, wrapping his arm around her waist as they started walking.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay,” she whispered, taking the lead.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is what you make of it.</p><p> </p><p>If you want it to be great, it’ll be great. If you want it to be sad, it will be sad and heartbreaking. If you want it to be happy, it will be amazing. Love is what you want out of it, what you want to make it into.</p><p> </p><p>It’s promises and forgiveness, it’s fights and make-ups, it’s life as we know it. Love is what we know it to be. Love is what we make it.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Jacob paddled back to shore, he had seen her when she appeared an hour ago, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to go to shore. He still wouldn’t have come in, but he was hungry.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s about time you came back in!” she said, her hair had grown out more than he expected, but she had stopped phasing sometime between when he left and when the Volturi left.</p><p> </p><p>“I got hungry,” he said, as he started walking, his board under one arm. “Let’s go.”</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t that he was surprised that Leah came to Hawaii, it was that he was surprised she came to see him. She wasn’t one to come looking for others, he wasn’t one that people came looking for. He was the one who went looking, and she was the one who got found. At least until now.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Sometimes love is the opposite of what you want, Jay-Bear, and sometimes it’s what you need at the wrong time. Don’t push it away.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Leah followed after him, just by a few steps, though Jacob didn’t turn around once to double check. He still phased, kept up on the Pack, but it was different now, being in charge wasn’t the same as before. He felt lost when he was a human and worse when he was a wolf.</p><p> </p><p>He set his board next to the others on the railing of the porch, before walking up the steps to Rebecca’s house.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey,” said Rebecca, from her seat at the table, Raymond in her arms, on the edge of nodding off. “Did Leah find you?”</p><p> </p><p>Jacob turned his head, to see Leah walk in the door, it closed with a bang behind her and Raymond perked back up. He turned back to his sister and took his nephew from her before he started crying. Raymond loved to cuddle with him, loved to fall asleep on his chest and lay there for hours.</p><p> </p><p>“I did,” said Leah, as she appeared at his side, she glanced at Raymond, before doing a double take. “I’m here to bring him back home.”</p><p> </p><p>“Made a mistake, should’ve saved your money,” said Jacob, as he held Raymond carefully. Raymond yawned and closed his eyes, cuddling into Jacob’s arms. Jacob himself felt tired, ready to take a nap, ready to disappear from the present, even if just for a moment.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re dad wants you come home,” said Leah, and he could hear the edge in her voice. He couldn’t remember a Leah without the edge in her voice, if he did, it had been before Sam.</p><p> </p><p>His memories were starting to get hazy though, his memories of the time before phasing. His memories of his mother came and went, the memories of his sisters were odd and hazy, and the memories of everything else, everyone else, came in and out of focus.</p><p> </p><p>He just didn’t understand grief, what it meant to mourn someone. He had spent his life, the last thirteen years of it, avoiding the thought of his mother. He had been trying to block out the sound of sirens since that day.</p><p> </p><p>“You need to go back Jacob,” said Rebecca and Jacob looked up at his sister. He missed Rebecca every day, like a curse. He missed seeing her get married, missed the birth of Sara and Sorra, and Raymond. He missed this important and wonderful part of her life. “Dad needs you more than I do.”</p><p> </p><p>“Dad has Rachel,” said Jacob, because it was true.</p><p> </p><p>“The Pack needs their Alpha,” countered Rebecca and Jacob locked eyes with her.</p><p> </p><p>“We do,” agreed Leah and Jacob didn’t like how easy they fell into rhythm together. It was like when Rebecca and Rachel were together, they went back and forth over his head. It was like when they used to talk over him at the dinner table, the pair of them telling the same story at the same time.</p><p> </p><p>“You haven’t phased in months Leah,” said Jacob, turning to her. He needed to get out of the room before something bad happened, before he did something bad.</p><p> </p><p>He took Raymond into the other room, where Solomon sat on the floor with the twins playing in front of him. They mostly toddled along the floor and babbled to each other as they played. Normally, Jacob would let himself take part in their games, but today was different.</p><p> </p><p>Part of him knew that he needed to go home, the other part of him didn’t want to leave. It was paradise here, paradise and quiet and beautiful. It was a place to run away too, it was a place to disappear and never go back, just like Rebecca had.</p><p> </p><p>He handed over Raymond and went to the room he shared with his nephew. He sat on his bed, and waited. Leah wasn’t one to keep anyone waiting.</p><p> </p><p>“You know that you need to come home,” said Leah, as she closed the door behind her. She looked at the mobile, it had fish and seashells and seals and turtles, it sometimes even made Jacob fall asleep on long nights. “We need our Alpha, we need you Jacob.”</p><p> </p><p>Jacob looked at her, her brown eyes and dark hair, her skin the same color as his, the scar on her left wrist from when she cut herself when she was ten. She was beautiful, he had seen her naked, he had seen everyone in the Pack naked, but she shied away from it more than any of the others. Leah was something to behold, even when she was angry and frustrated, even when she was looking at him with pleading eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know what I’m doing anymore,” Jacob told her, letting his eyes slide down her face, over her body, and to his hands. His own hands were covered in small scars that he would never remember where they came from, whether it was from the garage and his car, or from learning craving from his father. “I don’t know what’s wrong.”</p><p> </p><p>“Seth told me that Renesmee told you to leave, she broke the imprint,” said Leah, sitting down on the bed beside him. “I didn’t know that was possible.”</p><p> </p><p>He was sure that she was thinking of Sam and Emily, how he could’ve rejected the imprint for Leah. But Jacob knew that Sam would never do that, it was hard to not love Emily, she was the gold standard.</p><p> </p><p>“It was the anniversary of my mom’s car accident,” whispered Jacob, as he tried to remember what happened. He could remember Nessie, he could remember the other Cullens being there, he could even remember Rachel crying and himself getting on the plane, but everything else was gone.</p><p> </p><p>The details were like water in cupped hands, slipping through all of the cracks before he could take a drink.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Sometimes love is the opposite of what you want, Jay-Bear, and sometimes it’s what you need at the wrong time. Don’t push it away.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>He felt Leah’s fingers entwine with his, and he didn’t push it away, he couldn’t push her away.</p><p> </p><p>He needed her.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is slow.</p><p> </p><p>Slow and simple and sincere. It’s not easy, it’s not hard, it’s somewhere in between, it’s also both. They get used to a push and pull, just like the waves, just like Jacob and Leah. Some of it is calm, some of it is exciting, and some of it falls nowhere close to either.</p><p> </p><p>It’s motionless, still and unmoving.</p><p> </p><p>Slow.</p><p> </p><p>Love is slow, slow and simple and sincere.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Leah opened her eyes, it seemed unfair for the sun to be shining into the room so soon after the funeral. Even though it was only a day later.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey,” whispered Jacob, reaching forward to brush her hair out of her face. She grabbed his hand and kissed his fingers, getting a smile.</p><p> </p><p>“Morning,” she whispered, reaching forward to pull his face to hers. She kissed him softly, just as she did every morning.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not sending them to school,” whispered Jacob as Leah pressed her forehead against his. “Rachel and I talked last night, Billie and Riley are going to stay away for a while too.”</p><p> </p><p>“I overheard Quil and Chris talking the other day, the others made a schedule to keep the boys off patrols for a while,” said Leah, holding his hands in her own, his were much bigger than hers, but they still fit together perfectly. “I thought that it was really sweet of them.”</p><p> </p><p>“I wanted Sam to do that for you and Seth,” whispered Jacob, closing his eyes. “I was so angry at him, because it was as if he wasn’t worried about either of your well-being, as if a funeral was all you needed to grieve.”</p><p> </p><p>“I never knew.”</p><p> </p><p>“Mom, dad?” asked a voice from the other side of the door. Leah pulled away from Jacob as the door cracked open.</p><p> </p><p>“Come in,” said Leah, as the door slowly opened more and more. Mackenzie came in first, she had been the voice on the other side of the door. She crawled up onto the bed, right in between Leah and Jacob.</p><p> </p><p>It reminded Leah of when Mackenzie, when Marcus, when Max were younger, when bad dreams and scary nightmares plagued their nights. It reminded her of when they used to crawl into bed and would only fall asleep again after Leah rubbed their backs and hummed a tune that she could never name.</p><p> </p><p>Marcus followed next, laying his head on Mackenzie’s hip, even now, where one ended the other began. Marcus was her second born, the middle child. Neither Leah nor Jacob knew what it was like to be in the middle, she was the oldest of three, he was the youngest of three.</p><p> </p><p>It was how Rose and Rachel fit into their lives. Rose the sudden middle child, just barely a month older than Seth. Rachel was the second born of twins, but still the second, still the middle child. She was the one mistaken as the oldest, even more with Rebecca gone now.</p><p> </p><p>Max drifted in after the twins fell asleep, he looked weary, his eyes dead. He was an Alpha who was struggling to lead, an Alpha who had taken a hit that couldn’t be walked off.</p><p> </p><p>He fit in between Mackenzie and Leah, pushing Mackenzie towards Jacob. Leah rubbed his back as he pressed his face between Mackenzie’s shoulder blades.</p><p> </p><p>Sometimes, their children were one being, with twelve limbs, three heads, and one body. The three of them curled around one another and fit themselves in place.</p><p> </p><p>Two wolves, huge and deadly and mean, protecting the lone human.</p><p> </p><p>Long before Mackenzie and Marcus were even thought of, it was how Leah and Jacob slept with Max between them. Leah would always wake up to find Max on Jacob’s chest, one hand touching her wherever it could, the other on Max’s back, keeping him warm.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Love is your family, as much as you may think you hate us, love is the five of us, Leah. You, me, mom, Seth, and Rose, we’re your family.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Leah kissed Max’s forehead, before she ran her fingers through Mackenzie’s hair and leaned over to kiss her forehead too. She climbed out of bed the same time Jacob did, both of them watching their children, waiting for one to wake up, as if they were still baby’s.</p><p> </p><p>She kissed Marcus’ forehead, before taking Jacob’s hand and leading him downstairs to the kitchen.</p><p> </p><p>She loved their kitchen, loved how warm and bright the room always felt. It was where Jacob had proposed; where she had told him that she was pregnant with Mackenzie and Marcus; it was where they had more fights than she would care to count; and it was where they had said ‘I love you’ more than any other room in the house.</p><p> </p><p>It was a room full of memories, of making breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was a room where cookies were made and burnt and eaten. It was a room where secrets were shared over a glass, or bottle, of wine. It was a room that children were raised in, where they were fed and clothed and kept busy during snow storms.</p><p> </p><p>It was a room where she did Mackenzie’s hair every morning before school, helped Max with his math homework every day until he graduated, and gave Marcus the sex talk over hot chocolate. It was a room of happiness, of frustration, and of awkward situations.</p><p> </p><p>It was a room for a family.</p><p> </p><p>“Pancakes?” asked Jacob, and Leah went to the cupboard where she kept the big bowls for days like today.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, I think so,” said Leah as they stood side by side, falling into sync like they always did.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Love is your family, Leah. They make us better.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is the unexpected moments.</p><p> </p><p>Unexpected is a funny word. Unexpected is every moment. If it’s expected, it isn’t special, at least it doesn’t seem special. Surprises, whether good or bad, are always exciting, always something to want.</p><p> </p><p>Moments can be a few words, a few seconds, a few of anything. Moments aren’t measured through time or words, their memories. Moments are memories that happen in real time, it sounds weird, but that’s what they are. Moments are like a perfect game or a night where everything goes right, a night where nothing gets sent back.</p><p> </p><p>Their unexpected.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Jacob stared up at the stars, he missed the stars back home. They were always far and few in between, hidden behind clouds and rain and trees. He didn’t know that the sky could ever be so blue, could ever have so many stars.</p><p> </p><p>It reminded him of one of his mother’s paintings, a canvas painted a dark blue or maybe black, something in between, with little white pinpricks. The moon full and heavy and bright in the center, but it was always the pinpricks, the stars that caught his eye.</p><p> </p><p>The painting hung in his bedroom back in La Push. It was painted with a special paint that made it luminous even in the dead of night.</p><p> </p><p>His mother didn’t believe in night lights, she believed in facing fears.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Face the monsters head on Jay-Bear, show them whose boss. Beat them back with love and kindness.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Leah wasn’t a monster, she was a girl who had the unimaginable ruin her life. First with Sam, then with her heritage, and now with Jacob. She fought and fought and fought, until the kindness turned angry and bitter, and the love dried up.</p><p> </p><p>Jacob found the love again.</p><p> </p><p>The sand, the water, even the air was still warm in Hawaii. Leah was warm and soft and everything. He had seen her naked before, but it was different to see her above him, to feel her hands on his stomach, his chest, holding his as her mouth made a perfect O.</p><p> </p><p>Leah had bitten and fought and pushed, pushed, pushed for so long, that even now she couldn’t give up. He didn’t want her to either, she wouldn’t be Leah without the edge.</p><p> </p><p>He still couldn’t remember anything anyways.</p><p> </p><p>Her mouth was hard against his, her teeth ready to bite and hurt, as if she was a wolf playing human. As if it was the only way to get what she wanted, when she wanted it. Wolves fought for what they wanted.</p><p> </p><p>When she was done with him, she stayed still, her hair blowing around her face in the slight breeze. He could smell a storm in the air, but it didn’t matter, rain never hurt anyone.</p><p> </p><p>“Come home,” she whispered later, both of them still naked and drench from the sudden downpour. They were sitting on beach, her legs across his lap, and her head against his chest. She smelled like the ocean, briny and salty, but also a little like Rebecca, like Sara and Sorra and Raymond, like Solomon, and like him.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t know what it felt like to be in love, but his heart did skip a beat at her words. <em>Home</em>, home wasn’t quite where he belonged yet.</p><p> </p><p>Leah wrapped an arm around his neck, before moving forward again, starting everything over. This time though, he was the one leading the way, with her pressed into the sand.</p><p> </p><p>“Come home,” she said again, both of them sticky and sweaty and salty from the ocean water. It was going to be gross once they took a shower, but he didn’t mind.</p><p> </p><p>Leah’s mouth twisted into a scowl when he didn’t answer, but her eyes. Eyes that he always avoided before, told a different story. Her eyes betrayed her anger, her annoyance, showing only longing and sadness.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay,” he told her, letting her take her lead again. “I’ll come home.”</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is holding nothing back.</p><p> </p><p>It’s not fighting back, it’s not hurting, it’s not keep secrets, or maybe it is. It’s messy, secrets, but it’s easier when you have someone to share them with. Siblings are the first line, the first defense against the world, and they’ll be there to the end.</p><p> </p><p>Friends are the second defense, hot headed and quick to jump. Always around, always within sight or a call or…or something. The second defense can be flimsy at worse and iron clad at best, nothing is like a best friend.</p><p> </p><p>Lovers and significant others, husband and wife, they’re the third defense. The Generals making the rules, the game plans, the rules to keep you safe. They are the ones to hold you up, keeping you calm, and keep everything together when you fall apart.</p><p> </p><p>Secrets are what need to be defended, siblings know the secrets of growing together in a home, friends know the secrets of inside jokes and games played over the years, the lovers know the secrets that you share and make together.</p><p> </p><p>It’s a choice to open up, to let everything out, to give and not take anything in return.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Leah woke her children as she always did. First Max, rubbing his head and shoulders, until he opened his eyes, her eyes. Second was Marcus, she shook his shoulder until he opened his eyes and stayed at his side until he started to move. Third was Mackenzie, she ran her fingers through her hair and down her back until she groaned and opened her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>The twins had Jacob’s eyes, black but always bright. She had seen those eyes angry and sad, happy and loving, she had seen those eyes spit hate and she had seen those eyes smile and laugh. And that was just Jacob, her children were different.</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie made those eyes her own, soulful and sweet and so, so happy. Even in the face of tragedy, she seemed to make everything brighter, happier.</p><p> </p><p>Marcus made those eyes sad, there was always a little sadness in those eyes. Leah had known from the moment she met him that Marcus was going to be a tragedy. He carried sadness different than the others, than Max and Mackenzie, he carried it in his eyes, not his heart.</p><p> </p><p>“Dad made pancakes,” she told them, once they were all moving, their eyes all open. It still felt weird to call Jacob dad or father, even to her own children. Though it never felt weird to hear herself being called mom or mama or mother.</p><p> </p><p>Marcus climbed out of bed first, he needed to move to wake up. He needed to get up for Mackenzie to get up anyways. Max was second, though the first one out the door, embarrassed to climb into bed with his siblings and parents. Mackenzie was third, sleepy and tired, she pushed her hair out of her face and looped her arm through Marcus’.</p><p> </p><p>Leah knew that it would be hard for her children to move pass this tragedy. Being nineteen and eighteen didn’t matter, a month left of school didn’t matter, leading the Pack didn’t matter. What mattered was everyone sitting around the table, eating pancakes and trying to come together, trying to feel better. What mattered was her children coming together, becoming whole again.</p><p> </p><p>She saw what tragedy did to her siblings, to herself. Max was like her, he got angry and bitter and fought with himself. It took him three days to phase back and when he came back to their home, he fell on the couch and slept for fourteen hours.</p><p> </p><p>Marcus was like Rose, he held onto the pain. He let it consume him, take hold of his heart and keep him trapped. Leah watched Rose fall down a dark path that she hadn’t been able to take her out of, she fought for Marcus. She fought for him, against him, whatever she needed to do to keep him with her.</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie was like Seth, she hid her pain, her sadness away. She smiled and laughed, even though it didn’t touch her eyes like it used to. Leah watched Seth not sleep, watched him walk up and down the stairs for hours, until his muscles burned. She watched him stay awake until he fell over, only to sleep for a few hours and start it all over again. Leah kept her eyes on Mackenzie, made sure that she was sleeping, even if it meant that she didn’t sleep herself.</p><p> </p><p>Tragedy took hearts and minds, it tore apart families, it hurt and hurt and hurt until it couldn’t anymore.</p><p> </p><p>Jacob made pancakes and Leah woke up their children.</p><p> </p><p>When she followed after them downstairs, Jacob was making more pancakes. Sara and Sorra sat on the kitchen counter, leaning on each other. Riley and Billie sat at the table, both of them still teary eyed and sad. Jessica and James, and Raymond stood by the kitchen window, Raymond had always been closer to them, even if Max was his Alpha.</p><p> </p><p>Paul was fiddling with the radio they kept in the kitchen, letting music bloom and brighten. Rachel stood next to Jacob at the stove, the pair of them out of sync.</p><p> </p><p>Jacob got along better with Rebecca, which she always knew, but there was no more Rebecca. A car crash took their mother, a rogue wave took out Rebecca and Solomon, and age and sickness took their father. Jacob and Rachel didn’t have time to not get along anymore, to not give each other cryptic warnings on a beach that they loved, they were all they had left.</p><p> </p><p>Leah still had her mother, but that didn’t last long, she went searching for happiness after tragedy, and Leah didn’t stop her because it wasn’t her place. Leah had been nineteen, the same age as Max was now, he was facing the world in better standing than both her and Jacob.</p><p> </p><p>But Billy was different. He was the first face he saw in the world after Leah and Jacob’s, the first face that mattered. He was the oldest of his friends, the first born of the Pack children, Sara and Sorra, and Raymond may have been older, Raymond the first to phase, but Max was the Alpha.</p><p> </p><p>Max would be a Chief, like Jacob, like Billy, he would carry his birthright.</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie sat at the table, Marcus falling into place beside her, neither of them breaking apart. Max stood and surveyed his siblings, his cousins, his family. The Black family was bigger than anyone thought it would grow to be, all of them connected by the one person they missed most right now.</p><p> </p><p>Leah answered the door when Seth and Rose knocked. Seth followed by Cali and Chris, Connor, Carolynn, and Collie, with fruit salad and yogurt and oatmeal. Rose was followed by Brady, and their collection of children, Harry, Hayden, Harley, the twins Rosalie and Lillian, Ava, and little Henry. Rose brought three cartons of eggs, and a whole bag of peeled potatoes.</p><p> </p><p>Leah’s siblings went to action, they knew how to fill a house.</p><p> </p><p>Emily and Sam came next, with muffins and five loaves of homemade bread, Hannah, Leila, and Zac trailing behind them. Quil and Claire, Hailey and Embry, Kim and Jared all came together, with Q, with Lacsey and Terra and Carli, with Johnny and Kati. They each brought something, they each gave a hand.</p><p> </p><p>They didn’t have enough room for so many bodies, so many mouths and so much noise. But the Pack came together when one fell, it was how it worked. It was how it always worked.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Remember your friends and family and neighbors, Leah. The community will love you and treat you well if you let them in. They’ll do it as long as you allow them to.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p> ~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is people.</p><p> </p><p>Community and friendship, family and strangers, the people you never meet, who you don’t remember, can be the love you need. Memories have a strange way of appearing when you least expect it. People have a way of forcing themselves in when you don’t want them.</p><p> </p><p>Life goes on, people come and go, change and grow and love.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Jacob rested his head on Leah’s shoulder, she was warm just like him, but something was different now. He felt her lace her fingers through his, paradise was coming to an end, any second the plane was going to touch down and Hawaii was going to be in the past.</p><p> </p><p>“What are we going to tell them?” whispered Jacob, as Leah rested her head on his.</p><p> </p><p>“Whatever we want,” said Leah, her voice low and soft. “I’m sure that Rachel has already told everyone. She’s not good about keeping secrets, you know that.”</p><p> </p><p>“You would be surprised,” whispered Jacob, suddenly remembering the nights he crawled into bed with Rachel and Rebecca after their mother died. “She knows what to say at the right time and what to say to the right people. She won’t say anything to dad or your mom or even Kim and Emily.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sure,” whispered Leah, and Jacob knew she was rolling her eyes. He thought that Kim rolled her eyes a lot, mostly at Jared, but Leah almost had her beat.</p><p> </p><p>Jacob smiled, it felt unnatural for some reason. He didn’t realize how long it had been since he smiled last, since he felt happy…since he felt okay. Three months on a beach, three months in paradise, over a year of trying to be okay.</p><p> </p><p>Depression colored everyone differently. Rose drew in, Seth hid behind himself, Kim lost herself, and Jacob ran away. He used to think that Rachel was weak for feeling too much, that his father was strong for not showing his sadness, he was learning that it was the other way around.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you know who’s coming to the airport?” asked Jacob, squeezing her hand. “Or are we in for a surprise?”</p><p> </p><p>“Seth and Rose,” recited Leah, as if she had already told him. “In that stupid jeep that Seth bought.”</p><p> </p><p>“He loves that piece of junk,” mumbled Jacob, as overhead the pilot announced their upcoming descent to the ground. “It treats him well enough.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well if it breaks down, at least we’ll have a mechanic,” said Leah, pushing the armrest up in between them to pull him closer. Jacob sat up, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer to his chest. They ignored the instructions to put on their seatbelts, they weren’t vampires, but they were still pretty indestructible.</p><p> </p><p>Jacob tucked his face into her neck and closed his eyes. She still smelled like sunshine, like suntan lotion and the ocean, though underneath that, she smelled flowery and sweet like vanilla. He had a very faint memory of his mother, she smelled like something flowery, her perfume he was sure of it, but also like cinnamon, and the paints she used to paint with. He felt his heart break as he realized it was the same flowery scent as Leah.</p><p> </p><p>“Jake,” said Leah, patting his arm, “too tight.”</p><p> </p><p>Jacob relaxed his arm and he kissed her neck, hoping that it was enough. That it was enough of an apology.</p><p> </p><p> “I don’t want this to end yet either,” whispered Leah, as she patted his arm again. “I don’t want for this to be weird for everyone, but especially us. If we can’t do this around others, then we can’t do this at all.”</p><p> </p><p>“When did you get…?”</p><p> </p><p>“I started taking yoga classes and meditating and watching those weird stress relieve videos after the Italian leeches left,” explained Leah, lacing their fingers together again. Jacob pressed his nose into her neck again, let her scent fill his head. “It helped me get a control over my phasing and it also helped me get control over my life, Jake.”</p><p> </p><p>Jacob sighed and heard her heartbeat quicken, he felt himself smile. He would have to get better at that, back in the habit of it.</p><p> </p><p>“I stopped phasing because it didn’t make me happy, but I didn’t stop coming around to Billy’s or any of the parties that the Pack had because I knew you would be there,” whispered Leah, so low that he wouldn’t have been able to hear her without his super hearing. “When I heard you broke it off with Renesmee, I came looking for you. I didn’t want to ruin my streak, but no one seemed to know where you were. I finally broke down Rachel, it’s why I came down. I didn’t know it would be so easy to find you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Apparently I’ve always been easy to find,” Jacob told her, remembering his mother finding him so easily out in the garage.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s okay, I’ve always been good at searching,” said Leah, turning her and kissing his forehead.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“If you find someone you love, or want to love, hold them tight and don’t let them go Jay-Bear. Don’t ever let them go.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Jacob pulled away from Leah as the seatbelt sign finally turned off and he sat up, getting ready to get off the plane, back on land and not an island. He felt isolated on the Island, so far away from everyone on the farm with Rebecca and her family. He wanted to run for the first time in months, run along the beach or even through the woods around home.</p><p> </p><p>He stood up and got his and Leah’s bags out of the overhead compartment, along with the older woman’s bag in the row across from them. He carried both his and Leah’s duffels over one shoulder as they walked off the plane.</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t just Seth and Rose waiting for them, Rachel stood on Rose’s other side her arms crossed and a worried look on her face. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to hide anything from her when she looked like that.</p><p> </p><p>She looked like their mother, younger than he would’ve ever known her. Younger than any of them would’ve known her, with her bright eyes and long hair braided down her back, she looked like their mother on the last day he saw her.</p><p> </p><p>Over a year ago, he had been walking Rachel back home and telling her to be careful. To be careful about the guys that he grew up with more than she did, the Pack loved it’s people, the Tribe, but Rachel hadn’t known all the secrets yet.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh,” said Rachel, looking from him to Leah and then back again. “About time.”</p><p> </p><p>Jacob stepped forward and hugged her tighter than he should’ve, but still not tight enough.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Don’t ever let them go.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is laughter.</p><p> </p><p>Warm in the cold, biting and hard in sadness, loving and kind and sweet when genuine. Laughter is bad jokes and inside jokes and the good jokes too. Good jokes are hard to come by, the bad ones are funnier though.</p><p> </p><p>It’s the quick smiles that warm them, the laughter that heals.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Leah braided Mackenzie’s hair, it was soothing to her, and it also calmed Mackenzie. She was a ball of energy, reckless wild energy. Her daughter was the poster child of ADHD, something that she wasn’t new to, but Seth’s ADHD didn’t touch a candle to Mackenzie’s.</p><p> </p><p>“Shh,” whispered Leah, putting her hands on Mackenzie’s shoulders. She could almost hear Mackenzie’s wild heartbeat, loud and thumping and fast. She once worried about her heart, once worried that it would beat out of her chest.</p><p> </p><p>Leah went back to her braiding, her fingers moving quickly, she remembered learning on her mother’s hair. She would tie knots into her hair when she was little. Later, she and Emily would play in each other’s hair, she would teach Rose intricate braids and Hailey too.</p><p> </p><p>But being able to teach Mackenzie, her own daughter, the things she knew, it was better than anything. Mackenzie had beautiful thick hair, just like Jacob’s, it got frizzy in the summer, and completely unmanageable in the winter.</p><p> </p><p>The braids helped though, even if they had to be redone every day, sometimes twice a day. It was also some of the only alone time the two of them got, two girls in a house full of boys. Leah braided and Mackenzie talked, her hands stilling the farther Leah got.</p><p> </p><p>Today was different though, Mackenzie had nothing to say. Her hands were shaking, but the rest of her was still, nothing slowing down.</p><p> </p><p>“We brought lasagna,” said Kim, as she came and sat down beside Leah, her daughter Kati, her double, sat down beside Mackenzie. “I put it in the oven already.”</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you,” said Leah, as she put her hands on Mackenzie’s shoulders again, squeezing them softly. “I’m sure that everyone will attack it like they did the chicken and biscuits yesterday.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well we’re going to join you tonight, I didn’t make enough for the boys at home,” said Kim, as she reached for the brush on the coffee table and started brushing out Kati’s hair. “I’m sure four more won’t be too much.”</p><p> </p><p>“Considering we’ve be fitting nine more in than normal, I think it’ll be fine,” said Leah as she went back to Mackenzie’s hair. “Kati, thank you for dropping off homework this last week.”</p><p> </p><p>Kati nodded, and Leah watched as she reached over and took Mackenzie’s hands in one of her own. All of the Pack children were close, but Mackenzie was eighteen and Kati was sixteen, two years still meant a lot more than anyone would ever admit.</p><p> </p><p>But like Mackenzie and Jessica, Kati also knew what it was like to have her time split with a twin brother. A twin brother who left her behind to defend the Tribe against what would come to hurt her.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Leah, Rose needs your love as much as Seth does, she’s new to our family, younger and scared, but she’ll be your sister, your best friend if you let her.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Leah felt a hand on her forearm, she turned her head to Kim. She wasn’t her sister, though Jared was once her Pack brother, still her Pack brother. But Kim didn’t have to keep bringing them food, it had been a week since the funeral, ten days since the news came, but she kept coming with casseroles and snacks, with Kati.</p><p> </p><p>Leah didn’t remember her father’s funeral that well, she didn’t remember what was said, what her mother wore, or if she cried. But she did remember seeing Kim standing in the crowd, farther away than the rest of the Pack, looking just as lost as Leah felt. Kim didn’t know her father, she didn’t know her or Seth or Rose, she barely knew Emily at the time.</p><p> </p><p>Kim was her family though, she wasn’t her sister, but she wasn’t not her sister either.</p><p> </p><p>Leah put her hands on Mackenzie’s shoulders, but turned to look at Kim. Billy’s death had affected them all, he had taken in more lost children on the rez than even her own parents, even if he struggled with his own children. Kim wasn’t one of them, she was a lost child, but she wasn’t one of Billy’s, she was one of Emily’s, who <em>was</em> one of Billy’s.</p><p> </p><p>Leah became one of Billy’s when her father passed, became a lost child while her world fell apart. She was taken in when she felt too old for such a thing, and she was given a new family.</p><p> </p><p>She let herself become friends with Kim, with a broken girl from a broken home so much different than hers, but so much the same. Leah rested her head on Kim’s shoulder, and looped her arm through hers, a sister wasn’t always blood, sweat, and tears, sometimes it was just a girl who wormed her way into her heart.</p><p> </p><p>“You know that Billy hated my lasagna,” said Kim, as she started braiding Kati’s hair. “Hated it so much that he would eat the whole thing just to get it out of his freezer. Last year I didn’t make it for him because he always complained about it. He practically broke down my door and demanded to stay for dinner, because he insisted that he was owed a dry, tasteless lasagna, just how his wife always made it.”</p><p> </p><p>Leah smiled and without thinking, she started laughing. Billy had once told her that laughter was the best medicine, back when she was little and had the chicken pox and was over to get Jacob infected. She remembered asking him if it would make the spots disappear, it turned out not to be that kind of medicine.</p><p> </p><p>Laughter made the pain in her heart grow lighter.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is full.</p><p> </p><p>Full of surprises, full of happiness, full of hard earned time. Love, it turns out, is many different things, full of things that don’t seem to matter but add up over time.</p><p> </p><p>Love is a full stomach, a warm bed, someone to curl up next to. It’s time and memories, it’s many things in common and nothing in common at the same time. It’s laughter and friendship, it kisses and hugs and two people coming together when nothing else works. It’s two people coming together when nothing makes sense.</p><p> </p><p>Love is a full stomach, full of food and laughter, even a baby.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“I love you baby, you’re my baby boy, my Jay-Bear.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“Jacob, I’m pregnant.”</p><p> </p><p>Jacob stared out at the water, the waves lapping up against his feet. Emily had been excited, she danced around her kitchen, she laughed and sang to herself, so happy. Rachel cried, she cried and cried and cried until the tears stopped, then she cried tearless sobs, making Jacob escape the house. Cali, his sweet friend, who he loved and cared for, who he wasn’t as close to as he should be, was pregnant too.</p><p> </p><p>Leah was having his baby, rounding the number to four.</p><p> </p><p>He ran, Rachel wasn’t the only person in the family who found peace running on the beach. Rebecca ran every morning that he was with her and her family, she ran with Raymond on her back and Sara and Sorra on her heels. He ran until his mind cleared.</p><p> </p><p>Jacob knew his father wasn’t the best father in the world, he wasn’t the best person in the world, but neither was Jacob. Jacob wasn’t even a good person, a good person didn’t forget his mother, didn’t forget the details of his childhood because he was afraid to feel.</p><p> </p><p>He got to his feet, and started running again, he pulled his sweatpants off when he got pass the tree line and let the wolf burst out of him. He picked up his sweatpants in his mouth and kept running, running, running.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t know where he was going, but when the Cullen house came in sight, he knew that he was where he needed to be. He phased back into himself, and slipped his pants back on, before walking up the familiar steps.</p><p> </p><p>He knocked, even though he was sure that they knew he was here. He had spent the last year just walking in and out of the house, usually being met by one of the Cullens at the door.</p><p> </p><p>He had taken them by surprise, something he knew was hard for Alice to accept.</p><p> </p><p>“Jacob,” said Carlisle, as he opened the door, he smiled and Jacob couldn’t return the gesture. “Come in.”</p><p> </p><p>Jacob walked in, suddenly thinking about the irony of a vampire welcoming a werewolf into their home. It was funny to him that some of the myths were true, but most were just made up.</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you,” said Jacob, following in after him. “I wanted to say I’m sorry for how I acted the last time I came around.”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s understandable Jacob,” said Carlisle, keeping a few feet distance between them, even though Jacob was sure that he wanted to be closer. “The loss of a parent is a very hard emotion burden, I remember very little of my life before this change, but I can’t imagine how you’ve felt.”</p><p> </p><p>Jacob nodded, “I was five, and we never really talked about it. My sisters left the rez as soon as they could, and now Rebecca has her own family in Hawaii, and Rachel found out that she’s pregnant for the first time. It’s been…it’s been a hard summer.”</p><p> </p><p>“I heard about your trip, I had hoped that it would’ve helped you,” said Carlisle as Jacob felt a pair of skinny arms wrap around his waist.</p><p> </p><p>“Jacob!” yelled Nessie, smiling up at him. She unwrapped her arms from around him and Jacob nodded to her, the pull that had once connected him to her was long gone.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey kid,” he said, messing up her hair. “What have you been up to?”</p><p> </p><p>Renesmee smiled and grabbed his hand, leading him to the couch. She made him sit and opened up a small notebook, full of school work and doodles and all the little things she liked to write down.</p><p> </p><p>Jacob sat back, she was taller than the last time he saw her, almost five months ago. She was taller and skinnier and her face more angular, she still had Bella’s eyes though. They were innocent on her, young and sweet and happy, so much different than when he knew them on Bella.</p><p> </p><p>“Jake,” said Bella, when he delivered Renesmee, who was asleep with her arms wrapped around his neck to her cottage doorstep. “You’re back.”</p><p> </p><p>“I got Leah pregnant.”</p><p> </p><p>Bella frowned, and opened the door a little wider. She took Renesmee from him and disappeared into her bedroom, Jacob sat down in the overstuffed chair by the fireplace. Bella came and sat on the loveseat across from him, pushing her hair behind her shoulders.</p><p> </p><p>“Jacob I know you didn’t come here for Renesmee,” said Bella, and Jacob suddenly wondered when she got so perspective. The Bella he had known didn’t notice anything that was right in front of her. “Tell me what’s really wrong.”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know,” Jacob told her, wondering if Edward was around, if he could clear his thoughts. “It’s like everything hit me that day, like all of the mourning I was supposed to do just hit me over the head with a baseball bat. I was five when my mom was killed, and we never talked about how much that hurt us. Dad just moved on as if nothing happened, and Rebecca and Rachel just worked as hard as they could to run away.”</p><p> </p><p>“You Black siblings are good at running away,” said Bella, with a small smile and Jacob sighed, she was almost right.</p><p> </p><p>“Rebecca’s the only one whose managed to stay away, Rachel and I always come back,” Jacob told her, his hands felt cold for the first time since he was fifteen. He knew it was just in his head, it had to be.</p><p> </p><p>“How have Rebecca and Rachel been?” asked Bella, and Jacob bit his lip.</p><p> </p><p>“Rebecca has three kids now, Sara and Sorra, twin girls. Sara is named after our mother, obviously, Sorra after Solomon’s grandmother. And they just had a son, Raymond, before I came down. Apparently she know about the Pack, I don’t know if Rachel told her or not, but I think it’s fair,” said Jacob, he suddenly wished that he brought the pictures that Rebecca had packed into his duffel before he left. “It’s hard to believe that I’m an uncle, but they’re pretty great kids. Full of energy, they make a lot of noise being three of them.”</p><p> </p><p>Bella smiled, her real smile and Jacob tried to return the gesture. It didn’t feel right, even though he could see Sara and Sorra, and Raymond, in his head, waving him and Leah off at the airport.</p><p> </p><p>“Rachel’s pregnant, she just found out a few days ago…she hasn’t stopped crying since,” he told her, suddenly he was wondering if Leah was also doing the same. She was a year younger than his sisters, the three of them fell into place together. Now she was pregnant, stuck in the one place she always wanted to leave.</p><p> </p><p>“She’ll be okay, both of you will be okay,” said Bella, and Jacob nodded, both of them knew that these were empty words. Bella wasn’t good at comforting others, she was good at holding in emotions.</p><p> </p><p>“Sure, sure,” he said, and Bella laughed, he had no idea why or how or what reason for it, but it made him smile. It didn’t feel as unnatural this time.</p><p> </p><p>“Sure, sure,” repeated Bella, and Jacob laughed, suddenly, he wanted to go home. He wanted to see Leah.</p><p> </p><p>“I should go Bells,” he told her, getting to his feet, he suddenly felt lighter. “I’ll see you around.”</p><p> </p><p>Bella walked him to the door and smiled, she didn’t really look too different as a vampire, especially now that her eyes were gold instead of red now. The last time he had seen her they were still red, fading, but still bright red.</p><p> </p><p>He left, walking through the woods, away from the path that had been worn down to the big house, away from the Cullens. He stripped down and tied his sweatpants to his leg and phased. He blocked out the thoughts of the others, of the ones on patrol, and ran, ran to the one place he needed to be.</p><p> </p><p>“Leah, let’s have the baby.”</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is family.</p><p> </p><p>The family you’re born into, the family you make, the family fought for and the family lost. Family can be a few select people, or it can be everyone who makes home in your heart.</p><p> </p><p>Family is parents and grandparents, it’s children and grandchildren, it’s aunts and uncles, siblings and friends. It is what we make of it.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Leah stood behind Marcus’ chair.</p><p> </p><p>He sat very still in his chair, it always made her wonder how Mackenzie could have ADHD and Marcus didn’t. She bore both of them for almost a whole eight months, they were born early like Max, but they had been more expected.</p><p> </p><p>She ran her fingers through his hair, it was starting to get shaggy and too thick again. He needed a haircut.</p><p> </p><p>In the kitchen behind her, the microwave went off. She grabbed the plate that had the very last of the collective leftovers and set it in front of him before walking to the hallway closest. She pulled out the hair clippers she kept in there, that she bought the same night that Max phased in front of her.</p><p> </p><p>She went back to the kitchen and filled two glasses full of water, setting one down in front of Marcus and the other by the clippers. She then went to the bathroom and grabbed her hair scissors and a cape and a comb.</p><p> </p><p>When she found out she was pregnant with Max, she dropped out of her college classes and went to cosmetology school. It had never been something that she was interested in, but she quickly fell in love with being able to change someone’s appearance for the better. She had been able to get a job at the little salon in Forks, which paid well enough, along with the tips she received. But she also had no problem letting others into their house for a quick trim, or in some cases, a complete transformation.</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie fought her on her hair, she wouldn’t let Leah thin it out, even if it would make it easier. Max hated not having control over his hair, even if it was only for a few minutes, but he let Leah cut it every month like clockwork.</p><p> </p><p>Marcus never complained, he just sat in silence while Leah worked. They never needed conversation, something that Leah was always grateful for. She was a hairdresser, not a therapist for middle aged white women and their stupid children.</p><p> </p><p>When she was done, she tipped his head back and kissed Marcus’ forehead, as she had done since she gave him his first haircut. Marcus, her second born, her baby boy, he had Jacob’s eyes, just as sad and lonely. She had always worried about him, always worried about the sadness hiding in those eyes, she ran her fingers through his short locks and kissed his forehead a second time.</p><p> </p><p>“You know that if you need to talk to me, you can,” she told him, as she started cleaning up. Luckily she needed to sweep the floor anyways.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” he whispered in a hoarse voice, “okay mom.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Leah, I love you, and I want you to know that you can talk to me about anything.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“Then what’s on your mind?” she asked, because she knew what he was thinking about. He was thinking about Billy or Lacsey or his siblings.</p><p> </p><p>“Why have you been so normal, mom? Don’t you miss Grandpa Billy?”</p><p> </p><p>This was not what she expected, what she would ever thought of on her own. Sometimes, she forgot that Marcus was like Jacob, was like Rose, who held things in until she was forced to let them out. Leah put her hands on his shoulders and squeezed softly.</p><p> </p><p>“I do,” whispered Leah, looking down at his dark hair, “I miss him so much, but after my own dad died, I didn’t let myself mourn. I held in so much emotion that it nearly killed me, Marcus. I was hurting for a very long time, and after I had Max all of the emotions I felt escaped me. I felt empty and it wasn’t fair because I had a newborn, and your Aunt Rose was very sick at the time, and your Uncle Seth was very confused in his own life. Your dad, he…he helped me figure everything out, got Max and I into a proper routine. I told myself that when the next tragedy hit that I wouldn’t keep everything bottled up.”</p><p> </p><p>Leah moved her hands up into his hair, playing with the thick, soft locks. Marcus was easier than the others in some ways, direct unlike Max, unlike Mackenzie.</p><p> </p><p>“You know that I answered the phone when my mom called with the news,” Leah told him. “I was the first to find out, you and Mackenzie were at school and Max on patrols, your father at the machine shop. I was about to head out to the salon, but I didn’t make it out of the hallway.”</p><p> </p><p>“Mom,” said Marcus, tipping his head back and looking up at her with Jacob’s eyes. “You don-“</p><p> </p><p>“Marcus, I got the call at nine that morning, and I wanted to call the school and bring all four of you back home. I knew that Billie was going to be a wreck, more than the rest of you, but I couldn’t make myself get off the floor. It was like my father had died all over again, I let myself mourn, I let myself cry for both of your grandfathers. But I also knew that I needed to be there for you and your siblings, for your father, and for myself. It’s not that I’m not sad or upset, it’s just that I got to let it out before anyone else knew,” said Leah, feeling tears come to her own eyes.</p><p> </p><p>She wanted to be strong for Jacob, for Max and Marcus and Mackenzie, but she couldn’t always be a rock. She had been the rock for Seth and Rose and her mother after her father died, when she should’ve been just as washed away as them.</p><p> </p><p>“Just because it doesn’t seem like I’m upset, or hurt, or sad, just know that I am,” she told him, she needed him to know. “If I break the routine, I’m afraid I won’t be able to get off the floor. I’m afraid that you will need me and I won’t be able to do anything to help.”</p><p> </p><p>“That’s not fair.”</p><p> </p><p>“It is for me, Marcus Harry, trust me.”</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is home.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Jacob stared at Leah’s sleeping form. Her body was soft and warm, round with child, their child. She looked beautiful, her face calm, her body still, the lines on her face relaxed.</p><p> </p><p>He took the money that was left for him after his mother’s death. It had been put away for the three of them, Rebecca used hers to settle down in Hawaii, Rachel used hers for school, and Jacob bought a house. It was small, with three bedrooms, the master for Leah, one for a nursery, and the last for Jacob.</p><p> </p><p>He used the rest of the money and a loan and Quil and Embry’s help to open a garage. A dream that he once had when he was younger.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to come to bed?”</p><p> </p><p>Jacob felt himself smile, it was getting easier, easier to smile and to fall in beside Leah. Jacob walked over to the bed and slid in beside Leah, letting her wrap her arms around him and letting himself put his hands on her stomach. Leah drifted back off to sleep, her head on his chest, right over his heart.</p><p> </p><p>He felt a kick against his hand. It had been weird the first time he felt movement under her skin. Weirder when he saw it, saw the little foot or little hand press out of her stomach. It was amazing, beautiful, and crazy how much he enjoyed seeing life in her stomach.</p><p> </p><p>Leah, it turned out, was amazing. She was so much more than he could imagine, than he would know. She was his rock, steady and even and dependable. She was so much more than he could describe, than anyone would ever know.</p><p> </p><p>“Jacob,” whispered Leah, her eyes still closed. She sounded annoyed, as she laced her fingers through his, and put her other hand over his. “I love you too, now stop with the tapping.”</p><p> </p><p>“What?”</p><p> </p><p>“The tapping, it’s Morse code, you’ve been tapping it on my stomach since I told you I was pregnant.”</p><p> </p><p>Jacob’s hands stilled and he let out the breath he hadn’t know he had been holding in. He looked at her, she was smiling and looking up at him with knowing eyes. He hoped their baby would have her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Someone will love your eyes Jay-Bear, even more than I do. Keep them open and someday you’ll see them.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Jacob leaned down and kissed her. Her mouth was soft and warm and perfect, his hand wound up into her hair and pulled her closer. He didn’t know where this would lead, sometimes she stopped right here, sometimes it went farther.</p><p> </p><p>“So I think we need to make a list,” whispered Leah, later, with their clothes on the floor and the pair of them under the covers. “We need things for the nursery and the whole house actually, and I was thinking about names.”</p><p> </p><p>“Names?” asked Jacob, as his fingers made designs over the tight skin of her stomach. “Like for the baby?”</p><p> </p><p>“No, for the plants, Jacob,” said Leah, with a smile and a roll of her eyes. Jacob pressed his forehead to hers.</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry,” he mumbled, they still had three months, three long months before the baby would come. “It just seems too soon.”</p><p> </p><p>“That’s not a lot of time Jake,” said Leah, pulling her face away resting it on his shoulder, she reached down and laced her fingers with his. “Three months will go by quickly.”</p><p> </p><p>“What names do you like?”</p><p> </p><p>“I like simple names, but I know Emily is attached to Hannah and Zachary; and your sister is in love with James and Jessica; and I heard the name Christopher thrown around, but it’s not my favorite,” said Leah, as Jacob rubbed her stomach. “We know that we’re having a boy though.”</p><p> </p><p>“William, Matthew, Nathan, Maxwell, D-“</p><p> </p><p>“Maxwell,” repeated Leah, and Jacob felt it too, the solid kick from inside her stomach. “Maxwell Jacob Black.”</p><p> </p><p>Jacob didn’t know what to say, he never thought that he would have children, let alone name one after him. But if it was what Leah wanted, what she needed, then it was what he was going to give her.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you sure?” he whispered, as she squeezed his hand.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, I am,” she whispered, and he smiled. It was really getting easier, with each passing day.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is first.</p><p> </p><p>It comes before everything else, it’s the beginning and the ending. You come into the world surrounded by love, you leave surrounded by love. Love is the first thing in the world that we experience.</p><p> </p><p>Sometimes love falls second, but it’s rare. It doesn’t happen for them, love comes first, it’s an amazing and many headed thing.</p><p> </p><p>Love is a first born baby, cooing and sweet and amazing. First.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Leah stood in her boys’ doorway.</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie and Marcus shared a room until they were eight. Then it became clear that it was time to move Marcus into Max’s bedroom. There was protesting and crying and more whining than anyone could manage.</p><p> </p><p>But it still happened, Marcus got moved into Max’s bedroom, and their lives moved forward.</p><p> </p><p>“I made lunch, come eat,” she said, as she stared at Max’s back. He was curled up on his bed, his head tucked into his knees.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not-“</p><p> </p><p>“Come eat Maxwell,” said Leah, as she crossed her arms. She would stand in the doorway until he came out of bed, something that she knew he knew. He was just like her, that much was true, her double in more ways than she could’ve ever imagined.</p><p> </p><p>Max slowly climbed out of bed and she followed behind him, walking slowly. She watched as he sat down at the table, at the plate she made for him.</p><p> </p><p>All three of her children were incredible and amazing beings, each with their own thoughts and ideas and personalities. All of them were sweet and kind and a piece of her that she couldn’t name.</p><p> </p><p>Max was her oldest though, he was her oldest and biggest and funniest. He made her laugh every day when he was little, and made her laugh every day when he was older too. Max had come to her in a tough spot, when she was angry and hormonal and tired, with Jacob asking her to marry him with his mother’s ring, and the anniversary of her father’s death looming over her.</p><p> </p><p>Max had been born on the day her father died.</p><p> </p><p>She stood behind his chair and ran her fingers through his hair. Max liked control, he liked to be in control of everything, his hair, his body, what he ate and did. Being a wolf, the Alpha, gave him both all the control and no control.</p><p> </p><p>Leah never got to be Alpha, but she had wormed her way into being second in command under Jacob. It had been easy to get what she wanted from Jacob, it always had been easy to get what she wanted, even before she phased.</p><p> </p><p>“Mom stop,” said Max, and Leah put her hands on his shoulders, squeezing lightly.</p><p> </p><p>“Max I know you’re upset,” said Leah, because that was the truth. Max was upset, he was angry and tired and his emotions had nowhere to go. “I know you miss your grandfather, but it’ll get easier to let go. It won’t be quick and it won’t be easy, but it’ll happen.”</p><p> </p><p>Max gave her a bit of light when everything was dark. He gave her a purpose when nothing felt right or clear or good.</p><p> </p><p>“You were born the same day that my father died,” Leah told him, even though she already knew that he knew this. “I woke up at two in the morning, and thought that something was wrong, that I was dying. That I was going to take you down with me, but it turned out that my water broke a few hours before and you were ready to meet the world.”</p><p> </p><p>She went back to playing with his hair, his beautiful thick hair. All of her children had thick hair, thick and beautiful like Jacob’s.</p><p> </p><p>“When you were born, I cried and I thought that I was never going to be able to stop. It broke my heart that you were born on the worst day of my life,” Leah whispered as she tilted his head back, just like she had done with Marcus, she kissed his forehead. “I love you, and I know you don’t want to talk about Billy, but when you’re ready, I’ll be here.”</p><p> </p><p>She squeezed his shoulders before letting him finish his food. Even at twenty, Max still needed her, even if he didn’t want to admit it.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Just remember who loves you and cares for you and wants you here, Lee-Lee. He broke your heart, but we still love you.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“Mom,” said Max softly, as Leah walked into the kitchen. “I just don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about all of this.”</p><p> </p><p>“I know, it took me a long time to figure it all out myself,” Leah told him, as she turned around to see him right behind her. It still surprised her how quiet her children grew to be over the years, long passed were the days when she knew they were coming with their stomping feet and screams of laughter.</p><p> </p><p>She let him wrap his arms around her, warm and tight just like Jacob. It was the one thing that he had learned from Jacob, how to hug and hold someone tight.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is Maxwell.</p><p> </p><p>Sweet and kind and little, so little. Born three weeks early, small and adorable and with lungs that could match theirs. He was pure love, everything that he felt for her was represented in one small package.</p><p> </p><p>Max was his first born, his oldest, his baby.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Jacob held Max, he was so small in his hands.</p><p> </p><p>He had Leah’s eyes, bright and brown and innocent, beautiful and perfect. He was starting to remember more; afternoons sitting at the kitchen table in the Clearwater’s house, doing homework with Leah sitting across from him with Rebecca and Rachel; parties on the cliffs, that he was too young to be at, watching Leah with Sam’s arm wrapped around her; and mornings in his own house, with Leah between his sister’s, after she had crawled into their room through the window, eating breakfast that Rachel had made for them.</p><p> </p><p>In every memory, only one thing stayed the same, Leah’s eyes watching him. Watching him from behind a book, watching him while she kissed Sam, watching him while giggling into her pancakes. Now they were watching him from his son’s face.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey there,” he whispered, as he rubbed Max’s fine dark hair with his thumb. It had surprised him to see that he had so much hair once the nurse had cleaned him up. It was fine and soft and spiky, sticking up as if from shock. “It’s just your dad again.”</p><p> </p><p>It was amazing that he was father, he had a son. The months of waiting, of wondering, of hoping that he would be good at this, they were finally going to be put to the test. He glanced over at Leah, who was staring at him with glazed over eyes.</p><p> </p><p>She had woke him up at two in the morning to take her to the hospital. She then proceeded through ten hours of labor to give him their son.</p><p> </p><p>“Jacob,” she whispered, her voice hoarse from screaming. He had been on the receiving end of her yells and screams before, but not like that, not anything like that. “Come to bed.”</p><p> </p><p>It took a bit of maneuvering and a couple of handoffs of Max, but the three of them curled up together on the too small hospital bed. Leah’s head on his shoulder and Max in between them, his eyes closed and snoring softly.</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t believe I’m a mom, Jacob,” said Leah, as she traced the lines of Max’s face, over his nose and cheekbones and eyebrows. Jacob watched her eyes softened, Max will be the oldest of the Pack children.</p><p> </p><p>Max who will be followed by James and Jessica, his cousins, then Chris and Hannah, who will be two of his closest friends. The five of them would grow to be inseparable, would grow to love and care and want each other even during the worse and especially during the best times in their life. Four wolves and one human, five friends against the world.</p><p> </p><p>Jacob stared at his son, the next to-be Chief of the Quileute Tribe, of their people. He would be their next great leader, but first, he was their son, their baby boy.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Oh my baby boy, my Jay-Bear, I love you to the moon and back, don’t forget it for one second.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Jacob leaned over and kissed Leah’s forehead, she had done so well. She had brought a life into the world, something that he could’ve never had done without her.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is mistakes.</p><p> </p><p>Over and over and over again, it’s the little things. Little mistakes, little details that fall through the cracks. It’s missed calls and forgotten letters and emails left unread. It’s memories that disappear and reappear in dreams.</p><p> </p><p>It’s love, pure and simple. Love can’t be anything without a mistake, without a hundred little mistakes.</p><p> </p><p>It’s the imperfections that make it all worth it.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Leah sat beside Jacob, her fingers laced through his as they waited for the ceremony to start.</p><p> </p><p>In less than an hour, they would officially have three high school graduates. Only one would go off to college, but all three would be happy with their lives. It took Mackenzie ten days to return to school, it took Marcus another four. Billie and Riley returned a week later, but being Sophomores made it easier for them to return to school.</p><p> </p><p>“Three graduates,” whispered Jacob, squeezing her hand as Rachel and Paul took the seats beside them.</p><p> </p><p>“Three graduates, first in the Pack to have no high schoolers after this,” said Rachel as they all looked up at the stage where Billie was standing with the band, Riley right beside her.</p><p> </p><p>“About time,” said Max from the other side of Jacob, and Leah rolled her eyes. “Mark and Kenzie took forever to get through this year.”</p><p> </p><p>Leah smiled, it had been a while since anyone called Marcus and Mackenzie by their nicknames. The names that Billy had coined for them.</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry they were born a year after you, Maxwell,” said Jacob dryly and Leah squeezed his hand. “Next time we’ll try for triplets.”</p><p> </p><p>“No we won’t,” said Leah, she was having no more children, which she knew Jacob knew. She didn’t want to have grandchildren yet, but she would rather have grandchildren than be pregnant ever again.</p><p> </p><p>“Good,” said Max as overhead the music started, the music started and Billie began to sing. She was amazing, she sang as if no one was listening, as if she was the only person in the room. Leah loved listening to Billie sing, it was one of the reasons why she seek her out at Billy’s wake, because Billie would sing no matter what.</p><p> </p><p>Leah remembered her own graduation, her green gown and her hair braided in a bun that was too tight and itchy with her cap on. The speakers were all boring, they all repeated each other, they didn’t tell her anything she didn’t know. Then she walked across the stage, got her diploma, and was a high school graduate.</p><p> </p><p>That night, she got drunk and slept with Sam for the last time. The very last time, because he would phase for the first time and imprint on Emily and disappear from her life. Well, not disappear, just leave her for her cousin and start the emptying of her heart.</p><p> </p><p>She knew that Jacob didn’t remember any of his graduation, he had just started to slip, start to spiral. He would be on a plane in three days to Hawaii.</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t wait for you to have children Maxwell,” said Jacob and Leah laughed. She tucked her face into Jacob’s shoulder, giggling at the thought of Max having children. They both knew that it would be one of the twins who had children first.</p><p> </p><p>The speakers at this graduation were just as boring as they were at her own, maybe even more so. Leah paid attention though, just as she had the year before at Max’s graduation. She listened and held Jacob’s hand and watched as her third born walked before her second born, because of the alphabetical system they had in place.</p><p> </p><p>“Woohoo!” screamed Max as he got to his feet, cheering on both Marcus and Mackenzie. Leah smiled, she smiled and clapped and got to her feet while her youngest two walked across the stage and graduated from high school.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Good job Lee-Lee, you got the world in your hands and we love you so much.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie went to Jacob, something that Leah would never be surprised about, she was a Daddy’s Girl through and through. But Marcus came to her, letting Leah pull him in close, before she and Jacob switched kids.</p><p> </p><p>She pulled Jacob out into a quiet hallway and kissed him. She felt a little sad, but also more happy and proud than she could’ve ever been. She had three children, all of them graduates, she was married to a man she had loved since she was twenty, and she had a house that would be empty for the first time since they moved in.</p><p> </p><p>“Would it be crazy for us to have another baby?” whispered Leah, even though she already knew the answer. She was forty, Jacob was thirty-seven. They had a twenty year old and two soon-to-be nineteen year olds. They couldn’t have another child even if they tried.</p><p> </p><p>“You would be sixty-eight by the time they graduated high school, Leah,” said Jacob softly, as he rested his hand on her lower back. “I don’t want to be the oldest parents at graduation.”</p><p> </p><p>“It was just a thought,” said Leah, as she wrapped her arms around his neck. “I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask.”</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe we should just get a dog, become those weird people who put all of their energy into becoming dog parents,” said Jacob, and Leah laughed. “Even though we already raised three pups into adults.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” agreed Leah, as she pulled back, lacing her fingers through his again as she pulled him along. “I think we almost did a good job too.”</p><p> </p><p>“I think I did alright, but you did all the hard work,” said Jacob as they walked back into the gymnasium. She could find their children easily, the three of them standing together for pictures, a twin sandwich with Max in between.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is twins.</p><p> </p><p>Marcus and Mackenzie, one and the extra. Without really knowing, they know that Mackenzie was the one and Marcus the extra. It has nothing to do with who was born first or second, it has everything to do with who they are.</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie is the youngest, the third born, their only daughter. While Marcus is the middle child, the second born, their second son.</p><p> </p><p>They’re strangers to them, to the world, and to Maxwell, their older brother. They only sleep when they’re together, only eat when together, only cry when their apart.</p><p> </p><p>Twins are many things, a set, a pair, two kids verse the world. They’re family grown together and they’re family even when they part ways.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Jacob held Mackenzie in his arms, she stared up at him with his eyes, though they looked different on her than him. That was how it worked, his children looked like him, they acted like him, but they weren’t him. They were something incredible, something bright and wonderful and different.</p><p> </p><p>They were half Leah, so he couldn’t be completely surprised by how perfect they were.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey baby girl,” Jacob whispered as he rocked her in his arms. In the far corner of the nursery, his twin’s bedroom, they had a rocking chair that he had moved out of Max’s bedroom and into this bedroom. It was a gift from Quil, but he barely ever used it and Leah used it even less.</p><p> </p><p>He walked over to the rocking chair and sat down, he could see the ocean from the window, but only on nights when the moon was shining, nights like tonight. He rocked in the chair, watching the push and pull of the waves, and feeling Mackenzie’s small body relax in his arms.</p><p> </p><p>He kissed her forehead, her feet and toes, her hands and fingers. She was his world, along with Marcus and Max, along with Leah.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you doing?” whispered Leah, as she walked into the room. Her hair was pulled back into a messy bun and her eyes were more asleep than awake.</p><p> </p><p>“Rocking Mackenzie,” whispered Jacob, as she walked over to him. He handed her Mackenzie, and she climbed into his lap, tucking her head under his chin.</p><p> </p><p>“She likes the rocking chair,” said Leah, as she brushed her fingers through Mackenzie’s hair. Jacob knew that she didn’t always want this life, that she once dreamed of leaving La Push, and now she was here with him again. She even dropped out of her college classes and went to cosmetology school while pregnant with Max. She would have classes six days a week, from seven in the morning until six at night, learning how to cut hair, how to do nails, how to do makeup.</p><p> </p><p>Learning all the things she once made fun of.</p><p> </p><p>Jacob rubbed her back, down her spine. Leah closed her eyes and held Mackenzie, held her close and kissed her forehead. Leah wasn’t one for all the extra kisses, she gave what she gave and that was all.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re not having any more children,” whispered Leah and Jacob paused. His parents had stopped at three, Rebecca only had three, and Rachel had her twins with no plans for more. “Promise me that we won’t have sex on the beach again.”</p><p> </p><p>“I think we make pretty good kids though,” said Jacob, and Leah rolled her eyes at him. “Maxwell is a sweet boy and the twins have been good to us.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sure, sure,” said Leah and Jacob smiled. He never realized that it was his catchphrase until Leah started repeating it to him.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Sure, sure, Jay-Bear, you know I love you.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Leah handed him Mackenzie as Marcus started making noise. It wasn’t much now, but both of them knew the beginnings of a full tantrum when they heard one. She returned to his lap and waiting arms, the other half of their pair in her arms.</p><p> </p><p>“Shh,” whispered Leah, as she rubbed his back, holding him carefully. “Shh, baby boy.”</p><p> </p><p>“Maxwell is going to be awake soon,” said Jacob as Marcus started snoring in Leah’s arms.</p><p> </p><p>“Three kids under the age of two,” whispered Leah, with a sigh as she took Mackenzie in her other arm and rested her head on his shoulder. “What were we thinking?”</p><p> </p><p>“That we wouldn’t have twins,” said Jacob, because it was the truth, they weren’t disappointed by them, just surprised.</p><p> </p><p>“They run in your family though,” Leah muttered, as she closed her eyes. Jacob smiled, even though he could’ve argued that she was the reason they had one of each. “Even if it’s because of me that we had one of each. Stop smiling or I’ll fall asleep on you.”</p><p> </p><p>“I should get you to bed anyways,” Jacob told her, as he carefully cradled her in his arms and stood up. He didn’t bother to put her down, instead he walked to their bedroom and laid her down in bed. He didn’t move the twins, instead he went and got Max out of his bed and carried him into their bed. He would sleep better in their bed anyways.</p><p> </p><p>Jacob pulled Mackenzie onto his chest and let her relax into him. Then he reached over and pulled Leah into his side, kissing her forehead before falling asleep.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is goodbyes.</p><p> </p><p>Parents dying, siblings moving away, friends leaving, children graduating and going off to college. It’s moving your children out of the house, it’s taking your daughter to the airport to fly away. It’s one word, one easy, simple word, repeated over and over again.</p><p> </p><p><em>Goodbye</em>.</p><p> </p><p>It’s any easy word, eight letters, but it means so much.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Leah, one day I won’t be here, I won’t be here and I know that’s scary, but I love you and I hope our goodbyes aren’t as hard as they were with my father.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“It won’t be the same without you baby,” whispered Leah as she hugged Mackenzie to her. Mackenzie was her youngest, her baby girl, her only daughter. Leah kissed her forehead and held her against her chest.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll be back for Christmas mom,” said Mackenzie, her eyes brighter and happier than before the summer started. She was too young to run away from home, but she was a Black, and that’s what they did best.</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” said Leah as she held her daughter at arms-length. She was shorter than her, as Leah had a sudden late growth spurt just before she phased. “But you’ll be in another state, halfway across the country, a plane’s ride away not a quick drive away.”</p><p> </p><p>“Mom,” said Mackenzie, in the same voice as when she had sat down her and Jacob and told them she got accepted into the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. “I have to go, I have to get out of Washington.”</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” said Leah, because she did, she did know what Mackenzie needed, her daughter was like Seth, easy to figure out, even if she didn’t want to be. “And I’m excited for you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks mom,” whispered Mackenzie as she wrapped her arms around Leah again.</p><p> </p><p>“Text me when you land and call us when you get to your dorm,” Leah told her, as she let go of her. Her daughter was moving on with her life, she needed to move forward.</p><p> </p><p>“I will,” said Mackenzie as she wiped at her eyes and picked up her bags to walk through security. “I love you mom!”</p><p> </p><p>“I love you too!” called Leah, watching her until she disappeared beyond the gate.</p><p> </p><p>Leah walked out to her car and sat until the tremors in her hands stopped and she could stop crying. Her daughter, her daughter was leaving her, going to college to study history and anthropology. She was leaving Leah, leaving her to figure out her life and grow and learn. She was growing up and it scared her.</p><p> </p><p>The drive home was one that she would always remember. One that was different than any of the others that she endured over the years.</p><p> </p><p>She remembered when she and Jacob came home from Hawaii. Seth drove, Rachel kept turning around to stare at them, and Rose stared out the window. She and Jacob sat in the back seat, holding hands and trying not to laugh at Rachel.</p><p> </p><p>It was just a little bit of happiness, wrapped up in a tension filled three hour drive back home.</p><p> </p><p>Once she was on the highway, Leah reached over and turned on the radio. Mackenzie had hooked up her phone and played her favorite songs, mostly just Taylor Swift until Leah told her she needed something else.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>I took my love, I took it down, climbed a mountain and I turned around</em>,” sang Leah, as the music started, it was the CD Jacob and her had made for their wedding. She hadn’t cared for the song when she first heard it, but it grew on her, much like how she grew on him. “<em>And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills, 'Til the landslide brought me down</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>She smiled to herself and turned the music up louder, letting it surround her.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love? Can the child within my heart rise above? Can I sail through the changin' ocean tides? Can I handle the seasons of my life? Mmm, mmm, mmm</em>,” sang Leah loudly and out of tune and happy. This hadn’t been her idea of a first dance song, but Jared and Kim had danced to Weezer and almost fallen to the ground when they started jumping in the air together. But she and Jacob didn’t need anything with a lot of energy, they just needed something for them.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Leah, love should be easy, look at your mom and me, every day since I met her has been easy with her by my side.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Leah looked forward, her eyes trained on the road, ready to be home, ready to see Jacob again.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is Leah, and Jacob.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Jacob wrapped his arm around Leah’s waist, holding her closer, and kissing her temple. He once remembered Rachel or maybe Rebecca telling him that when you really loved someone, then you barely moved while dancing.</p><p> </p><p>He and Leah were still in the same spot when they started, just swaying together.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Well, I've been 'fraid of changin', 'cause I've built my life around you</em>,” Jacob whispered as he held her tighter in his arms. This day, this wonderful, glorious day, was ten years in the making. Ten long and complicated and wild years. Ten years spent with three beautiful and wildly different children. Ten years of actual happiness.</p><p><br/>“<em>But time makes you bolder, even children get older, and I'm gettin' older, too</em>,” Jacob sang to her, he wasn’t much of a singer, but he had fallen in love with singing to her while she was pregnant with Maxwell. “<em>Well, I've been 'fraid of changin', 'cause I've built my life around you</em>.”<br/><br/></p><p>His life had changed so much in the last twelve years, had changed and grown and expanded. All of it thanks to Leah, all of it because of Leah. He would love her until his dying day, that much was known, that much he did know.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>But time makes you bolder, even children get older, and I'm gettin' older, too</em>,” Jacob whispered in her ear. As he felt a pair of arms wrap around his waist, they both glanced down at Mackenzie, Marcus, and Maxwell. Their children had one mind at times, not often, and usually it was just Mackenzie and Marcus, but sometimes the three of them were one. “<em>I'm gettin' older, too</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>Jacob pulled away from Leah and picked up Mackenzie and Marcus in each of his arms. He watched as Leah grabbed Max’s hands and pulled him to her. He smiled as he spun around with the twins in his arms, causing them to giggle loudly.</p><p> </p><p>Jacob smiled as he caught Leah’s eyes, it was easy and natural and he felt his heart grow lighter. His mother had once told him that love should be easy, that love was easy. Love was him and Leah, it was Mackenzie and Marcus and Maxwell.</p><p> </p><p>Love was Leah in the same dress that Emily and Kim and Rachel all wore at their wedding. It was Leah wearing the same shawl that his mother wore, and no shoes and her hair braided back with a crown of flowers and seashells.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Love is easy, love is simple, remember that Jay-Bear.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Today was a perfect day, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Here's part two!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Mackenzie braced her hands on the back of her car.</p><p> </p><p>She had sex with Spear on and off for the last few years, since she lost her virginity to him when she was sixteen. She never really liked him too much. He had been nice at the beginning, but over the years had become pretty possessive.</p><p> </p><p>He had asked her to move to Seattle with him, to give up her scholarships and go to school down there. She wanted to leave Washington, wanted to go to school in Michigan. Even if she knew that she was going to miss her parents, her brothers, her family.</p><p> </p><p>At least she had one less person to miss, her Grandpa Billy was gone. He had been her favorite person, he had been one of the most important people in her life, one of the few adults in her life that she actually listened too.</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie moaned softly as Spear flicked her nipple, causing a wave of pleasure to go through her body. She closed her eyes, her thoughts moving away from Spear, and back to Christmas.</p><p> </p><p>Renesmee had come to visit her grandfather during Christmas, and because her family liked to spend all of their time together, including Charlie Swan, her Grandma Sue’s boyfriend and Grandpa Billy’s best friend. Renesmee had also been her father’s imprint, but neither of them wanted it.</p><p> </p><p>When Renesmee came down to the reservation, Mackenzie had been sure she was going over to see Claire. She almost didn’t know what to do when she had showed up at her house. She had showed up and made herself at home in Mackenzie’s bedroom. Mackenzie had no idea when things turned from them just talking to kissing.</p><p> </p><p>From kissing to exploring, to finally…</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie gasped as the memory of Renesmee’s soft red curls in her hand appeared in her head. Renesmee giggling as her lips moved over Mackenzie’s thighs, teasing and soft. As her lips moved farther between her legs, until she was licking and kissing and sucking on her clit.</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie remembered the feel of her lips, wet on her own, moving softly as she kissed her. She remember Renesmee’s own squeaks and sighs and laughter when Mackenzie returned the favor.</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie gasped as the muscles wound tight in her stomach suddenly released. Spear kissed her neck, panting still as his lips moved to her ear, “you liked that, right?”</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie took a deep breath and let it out slowly, her whole body felt tense as Spear pulled out of her and tucked himself back into his pants. She started to quickly button her shirt back up as the sound of the school bell, signaling the end of the day reached them.</p><p> </p><p>“I have to get home,” Mackenzie told him, walking on shaky legs to the driver’s side door of the old Rabbit. It had been her father’s first car, he had built it himself back when he was sixteen. Before all the weird things in his life started to take over.</p><p> </p><p>She drove off, leaving Spear to whine and groan and be frustrated with her. She wasn’t ever going to move to Seattle with him.</p><p> </p><p>Just like she wasn’t ever going to tell anyone about that afternoon with Renesmee. She had never even thought about the possibility of liking another girl, let alone Renesmee. She had the same feeling in her stomach as when Renesmee left her that afternoon to go back to her grandfather’s house.</p><p> </p><p>It had been a long few months since then.</p><p> </p><p>She had slept with other boys, but the thought of those lips on her, they still made her head swim.</p><p> </p><p>She wasn’t sure if she was attracted to girls or boys, or possibly both. Both seemed like the right word, the right thing. She had been attracted to Spear, at least in the beginning, but he was boring now, too easy.</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie didn’t realize she was at Grandpa Billy’s house, until she was parked in the driveway. The bikes sat out front, on either side of her car. She’d rather been able to ride one of the bikes to school, but her brothers favored them over the car.</p><p> </p><p>“You coming in?”</p><p> </p><p>She looked up at her cousin Raymond. He was a few years older than her, not the oldest of them all, that was the twins Sara and Sorra. They had come for the funeral a few weeks ago, but had returned to school to finish their exams and graduate.</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie climbed out of the car and followed him inside. Raymond, like her brothers, was tall and muscular, with short black hair and dark eyes. He wasn’t as tall as either Max or Marcus, but he was obvious a Black grandchild.</p><p> </p><p>Grandpa’s Billy’s house was still lively, even if he wasn’t around anymore. When her Aunt Rebecca and Uncle Solomon died, Sara and Sorra, Raymond, and Riley all came to live with Grandpa Billy. Sara and Sorra never got close to any of them, they were two years older than Raymond, who was a year older than Max and James and Jessica.</p><p> </p><p>Billie and Riley sat on the floor together, watching TV, while James and Jessica and Marcus all sat on the couch behind them. Max stood behind them, his arms crossed, not paying attention to the news.</p><p> </p><p>“How was school?”</p><p> </p><p>She was the first of the four of them to return to school, Billie and Riley and Marcus weren’t ready yet. She was barely ready. School had felt like a death sentence, it was the reason why she had called Spear in the first place.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t want to go back,” she whispered, before going to her place between Billie and Riley on the floor.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is discovering.</p><p> </p><p>Learning and changing and finding new things. It’s a world of new, of new people, new experiences, new discoveries. It’s him, kind and simple, a familiar face in a new and unyielding world.</p><p> </p><p>It’s more and new and changing, it’s a world that she learns, that she grows comfortable in.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie took a deep breath and turned around.</p><p> </p><p>College, it turned out, wasn’t like the movies. Her classes were hard, her roommate was a bitch, the parties were too loud and too quiet at the same time. She didn’t like this strange and wild place, Michigan was so different than Washington. Than her tiny corner of Washington that she loved and wanted to return to.</p><p> </p><p>Michigan was bright, the sun shining and happy, so different than what she grew up in. She missed her clouds, dark and oppressing, the rain washing everything anew, the cold making everything clearer. All of the things she was excited to leave, she missed the most, and all the things she knew she would miss, she couldn’t begin to think about.</p><p> </p><p>The very thought of her parents, her mother braiding her hair every morning and her father messing it up just after, made her heart break over and over again. She missed her brothers too, Max with his anger and stoic attitude and Marcus, her twin brother, her closest confidence and her best friend.</p><p> </p><p>She missed them like breathing.</p><p> </p><p>It was an ache that she couldn’t get rid of, an ache that hurt worse than anything in her life. It hurt worse than when her Grandpa Billy died.</p><p> </p><p>And oh, did she miss her grandfather. He was her favorite person, he was funny and smart, he could make her laugh until she cried and he told her all the stories of their people, over and over again. He was the reason she got into this school, he was one who told her to go to Michigan.</p><p> </p><p>He had promised to be waiting for her when she came home. He had promised to be waiting with open arms. He had promised, but then his cough got worse, his lungs got worse, his health took a dive. She had only visited him once in the hospital, that was how quickly he went, everyone had acted like it was a surprise, that he would come back from that set back.</p><p> </p><p>Her mom had waited until they got home from school, she had tear marks on her face and her clothes were a wrinkly mess, which wasn’t like her. Mackenzie had known the worst had come the second she saw her, her mother liked to pretend that she was like Uncle Seth, and that she didn’t know or pay attention enough to her, but Mackenzie knew more than she let on.</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie let out a breath and surveyed the cafeteria.</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t have any friends, even though she took part in two different study groups and had started attending an out of state support group. She had only started going to that in hopes of making at least one friend.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey Brown Eyes, over here!” called a voice, and Mackenzie turned her head.</p><p> </p><p>She knew the voice, it was one that she heard in classes and in her dorm building. She looked over at the table of boys, where only one reminded her of herself.</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie was nineteen, but in her nineteen years, she had never spent more than two days away from her twin brother Marcus, before now that is. Moving halfway across the country away from her family, her twin brother, it was devastating.</p><p> </p><p>But finding someone who looked like her, in such an unfamiliar place, it was like being home again.</p><p> </p><p>“Um, hi,” said Mackenzie, setting her tray down on the table. “I’m Mackenzie Black.”</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” said the boy who looked like her, he was taller than her, even sitting down. He had dark hair like hers, long like how hers had been, before she had her mother cut it down to her chin to make it more manageable. “I’m Evander Masen.”</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie sat down, she had learned quickly that introducing herself didn’t mean that she got an invitation to sit down.</p><p> </p><p>“You can call me Evan if you like though,” said Evander and Mackenzie nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“You need something better than that,” said Mackenzie with a smile, Evan didn’t quite fit as a nickname for him. He deserved something closer to his actual name. “How about Ander?”</p><p> </p><p>“Alright then Mack, I like it.”</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie suddenly had the feeling that college wasn’t going to be so hard anymore.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is chances.</p><p> </p><p>The first step, jump, skip, it’s all that it takes. Sitting with the cute boy in the cafeteria, exchanging numbers with him, going to his concert, even letting him bring her home for Thanksgiving.</p><p> </p><p>All the little things that add up, all the little things that lead from one thing to the next.</p><p> </p><p>The chance of more, the chance at a hug, the chance of a first kiss.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Everything was green, beautiful and green and familiar. The air had been getting colder for the last few weeks, and the clouds had started rolling in over that time too. Winters apparently were a lot different here than back home. Snow stayed longer than mid-December through mid-February, here it stretched all the way until April.</p><p> </p><p>“So my sister is very excited to meet you,” said Ander as he flashed Mackenzie a smile. “Don’t worry though, I told her that your name is Mackenzie and that you like to be called Kenzie.”</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie nodded, feeling the anxiety in her chest lessen. She had never been this nervous before, she never had to meet a boy’s family that she hadn’t grown up with.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ve never done this before,” Mackenzie told him, as she looked over at him. “I’ve never met a guy’s family that I didn’t know since I was a baby.”</p><p> </p><p>“That’s crazy,” said Ander, glancing over at her again. Mackenzie felt herself blush as she smiled. “You know that right?”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m from a very small town,” said Mackenzie looking out the window, anything to avoid his eyes, his knowing smile. “I know everyone better than you could imagine.”</p><p> </p><p>“Same,” said Ander, and Mackenzie rolled her eyes. But Ander did get it, he was from a town about as big as La Push, maybe even smaller. But he didn’t get everything, he wouldn’t get everything, like their legends. She wasn’t ready to let him in that far.</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie stared out the window and tapped her fingers on her knee until Ander reached over and took her hand in his. She turned her head and looked at him, he was just smiling and looking out the window.</p><p> </p><p>“My sister Raelynn will love you, and my parents will too, Mack,” said Ander, still looking at the road in front of them. “I wouldn’t have asked you to come all the way here if I didn’t think that they wouldn’t love you more than me. You’re the first girl that I’ve ever wanted them to actually meet.”</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie nodded the green around them was starting to turn brown and white, colder and snowy. It was too early for snow in her opinion, too early for it to be this cold.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m going to need both of my hands here,” said Ander and Mackenzie let him pull away, the outside was getting snowier. “But we’ll be home in about an hour.”</p><p> </p><p>“But the highway is ending?” said Mackenzie as she read the sign on the side of the highway.</p><p> </p><p>“We go beyond the highway here,” said Ander with a large smile. “Don’t worry though, I know where to turn.”</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie couldn’t help herself but smile, even when the snow picked up more and they grew to a crawl, following big pickup truck after pickup truck. They left at eleven that morning, with enough time to get settled before dinner, but the apparent last hour dragged into two as the snow turned into a full on blizzard around them.</p><p> </p><p>Ander grabbed their bags out of the backseat and together they made a mad dash up to the garage. Mackenzie started laughing the second they got inside she could feel the snow weighing down her hair, weighing down her jacket.</p><p> </p><p>“Welcome to the Great Up North that everyone always talks about,” said Ander as he dropped their bags and pulled her into his arms. Mackenzie kissed him, a new aspect to their relationship. It had started the night she had watched his concert, he was a music major, and he had been incredible.</p><p> </p><p>She wrapped her arms around his neck and kept his face next to hers. Something was stirring in her stomach, she felt it whenever they kissed, whenever they were close together.</p><p> </p><p>“Come on,” he whispered, unlatching her arms from around him. “Let’s go upstairs.”</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie picked up her bag and followed behind Ander as he led her through the garage, through the basement, and up to the house. He paused with his hand outstretched to her, and his signature Ander smile, Mackenzie took his hand and together they walked through the last door.</p><p> </p><p>Ander’s parents were waiting for them, his mother in the kitchen behind the counter, her arms crossed over her chest. His father at the kitchen table, a newspaper in his hands, but he was sure that he hadn’t read any of it.</p><p> </p><p>“Remember when we promised each other that that you would call if you ran behind Evander Jacob Masen?” asked his mother, and Mackenzie suddenly felt small. She didn’t belong in this space, she didn’t belong here during this confrontation.</p><p> </p><p>Her parents never fought, if they did, it was over little things, like whose turn it was to do the dishes and whose turn it was to drive them to school. The worse fight she ever witness was when they fought over their wedding.</p><p> </p><p>The wedding fights were really about nothing, it was more tension about being married, making her mother’s name legally Leah Black even though she had been signing her name like that since she was pregnant with Max.</p><p> </p><p>The months before her brothers phased, Mackenzie had been a mess, the tension in their house was suffocating.</p><p> </p><p>It had got to the point that she had an anxiety attack, not that anyone knew that. Not even Marcus had known.</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry mom, the blizzard got worse and I didn’t want to pull over just in case we didn’t get out,” said Ander, so easily, so calm. Mackenzie could never do that, she never had the ability to stay calm when the emotion of the room was so unsteady.</p><p> </p><p>“And your friend couldn’t call us?”</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t think about it,” said Ander, as he walked into the room, he reached for her hand again, and Mackenzie took it. “But mom, dad, this is Mackenzie Black, she came all the way from UofM to meet you.”</p><p> </p><p>“You are still in trouble Evander,” said Mrs. Masen, as she walked out from behind the kitchen counter. “It’s very nice to meet you, Mackenzie, we’ve heard so much about you.”</p><p> </p><p>“I hope it’s all good,” said Mackenzie, hearing the shakiness in her own voice. “You have a lovely home.”</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you,” said Mrs. Masen and Mackenzie suddenly had the feeling that she was being x-rayed. “Evander will show you to Raelynn’s room, it’s small, but I know it’s bigger than a dorm room and you’ll get it all to yourself.”</p><p> </p><p>“Rae’s not coming home for Thanksgiving?” asked Ander, and Mackenzie could hear the worry in his voice. “She told me tha-“</p><p> </p><p>“She’s coming tomorrow Evander, driving all the up from Detroit, even though I told her to get a ride with you,” said Mrs. Masen, and Evander nodded. “She and Nicholas are going to be the death of me.”</p><p> </p><p>Ander smiled and led Mackenzie down a hallway, he stopped in front of a door. “This is Rae’s room, mine is right across the hall. The bathroom connects our rooms, but there is a lock on the doors if you don’t want anyone to come over.”</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie nodded and turned to Raelynn’s bedroom door. She felt nervous again, this house was so weird, she was used to the little cabins from back home, not that this house was any bigger.</p><p> </p><p>She was used to tapping against her wall and hearing Marcus’ reply on the other side. She was used to hearing her parents across the hall from her, her father getting up early in the mornings and her mother following after him to take a shower. In most of her friend’s houses, they shared a room with their siblings, like how Max and Marcus did back home.</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie changed out of her wet clothes and into her favorite sweater and a pair of leggings. When she had come out to Michigan, she hadn’t been as prepared for the weather as she thought, she had expected it to be just as cold as Washington, but when she got off the plane and outside, she was horribly mistaken.</p><p> </p><p>It had been hot and windy, she had come dressed in a sweater and jeans, she had quickly stripped in the airport bathroom before getting a ride to the campus. She had called her mom the second she felt settled and had her send out her summer clothes.</p><p> </p><p>She arrived with clothes that she wore comfortably year round in rainy La Push. Michigan, it turned out had more of a summer than she was used too.</p><p> </p><p>Now though, as it was clear winter came earlier than Mackenzie expected, she was in good hands. Sweaters and leggings and blue jeans were the perfect clothes for snowy days.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey,” said Ander, poking his head into the bedroom, where Mackenzie had set herself up on the bed, her laptop on her legs. “Come eat dinner with us.”</p><p> </p><p>She was trying to get a head start on an essay she had due at the end of next week. “I didn’t realize…sorry,” said Mackenzie following after him. Already she knew that coming was a mistake. Her support group had made plans to crash the international students Thanksgiving.</p><p> </p><p>“Dad doesn’t bite,” whispered Ander, with his signature smile, “just mom.”</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie nodded and followed after him, back down the hallway to the kitchen. The atmosphere was completely different than when they came in earlier. And the smell of Mrs. Masen’s spaghetti and meatballs made her stomach growl.</p><p> </p><p>“This smells amazing,” said Mackenzie as Ander started making a large plate. The sight of the food was reminding her of the last time she had ate, which had been the snacks she and Ander had in the car that afternoon.</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you Mackenzie,” said Mrs. Masen as Evander set the plate he made in front of Mackenzie with a wink. “Evander, you could learn something from this girl.”</p><p> </p><p>“I think he already has,” said Mr. Masen, and Mackenzie felt herself blush. “Now where is it that you’re from?”</p><p> </p><p>“Washington,” said Mackenzie as a basket of rolls was passed to her. “The state.”</p><p> </p><p>“The state,” repeated Ander quietly, and Mackenzie couldn’t help but roll her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“I grew up on a little reservation about an hour south of the Canadian border,” explain Mackenzie, as Ander’s parents nodded. “My father is the Chief of our Tribe.”</p><p> </p><p>“Wow, you must really know your tribal history then,” said Mrs. Masen, and Mackenzie nodded.</p><p> </p><p>“My grandpa used to tell us all the old legends,” said Mackenzie, before taking a bite of her pasta. She felt herself relax, it was much better than the spaghetti that Claire always made. “This is really good too.”</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you, I’m happy to get you away from whatever they feed you down at the university,” said Mrs. Masen and Mackenzie grinned, the cafeteria food wasn’t horrible, but it was nowhere near as good as this.</p><p> </p><p>“Mom is the best cook in town,” said Ander, and Mackenzie nodded. “She rules the kitchen with an iron fist, so be careful.”</p><p> </p><p>“My Aunt Rachel is the same way,” said Mackenzie, because it was true. Anytime anyone came into the kitchen at her and Uncle Paul’s house, they got put to work. Billie didn’t mind, but most of the boys seemed to. “So is my Grandma Sue.”</p><p> </p><p>“So are you planning on going home for Christmas?” asked Mr. Masen, looking up from his plate and to Mackenzie. “Or should we be expecting you then too?”</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie didn’t know how to answer, she had never been invited into a person’s home like that before, not even by her own family. She had her plane ticket for home already, bought by her parents the same time she had bought her ticket out to Michigan.</p><p> </p><p>“My parents bought me a ticket to come home,” Mackenzie told him, setting her fork down on the table, “but thank you for the offer.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well the way that Evander has been talking about you,” said Mr. Masen with a large smile, Ander’s smile. “I would’ve thought that he had purposed by now. Every phone call has been all about you.”</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie felt herself grow warmer than ever, sure that she was going to die from embarrassment, she hadn’t even slept with Ander yet.</p><p> </p><p>“Dad, come on,” whined Ander and Mackenzie giggled, not even noticing the wink that Ander’s parents shared.</p><p> </p><p>She kind of hated herself for this, but she could feel the same strange feeling in her chest when Ander kissed her. She didn’t know what it meant, but she liked it.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is sweet.</p><p> </p><p>Hugs and kisses, smiles and giggles, please and thank you’s. All sweet and kind and easy, everything that you want, everything that’s expected. Sweet is the little things, it’s kissing her every night outside of her dorm room, it’s a text goodnight once he’s back to his dorm, it’s a good morning call to help wake her up.</p><p> </p><p>It’s going for a run with her even though he hates it, it’s listening to her talk about history and cars, it’s watching him play his guitar, the piano, his violin. She thinks it’s sweet whenever he finds her in a crowded room, when he curls up around her in bed, when he brings her breakfast every Tuesday because she has an early class.</p><p> </p><p>Love is sweet, sweet, sweet.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie curled up around Ander.</p><p> </p><p>Spring break would be over tomorrow, and they would have to go back to real life. They spent the whole of their break in his bed, writing essays and watching movies. Curled up around one another, getting closer and closer to being together fully.</p><p> </p><p>“Who was the first person you slept with?” whispered Ander as his hand moved down her bare back, right along her spine.</p><p> </p><p>“His name was Spear,” said Mackenzie, thinking of her on and off ex-boyfriend. “He’s the same age as my brother Max. We started dating when I was fifteen and my mom made me go on birth control about a week after I told her I was dating him. He was really nice, we got along most of the time, but the rest I would just avoid him.”</p><p> </p><p>Ander laughed and Mackenzie smiled. “He wanted me to move down to Seattle where he was going to school…but I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t force myself to move in with him, I didn’t love him and I don’t think I ever did.”</p><p> </p><p>“Wow,” whispered Ander and Mackenzie felt his hand move through her hair. “Your ex-boyfriend wanted you to move in with him? Is that how they do it in Washington?”</p><p> </p><p>“Obviously not,” said Mackenzie, looking up at him. “I came here because my grandpa wanted me too. He was supposed to be waiting for me, he was supposed to come to my high school graduation.”</p><p> </p><p>The thought of Grandpa Billy still hurt, still made her heart ache and miss him. He was such an important person in her life. He had babysat her when she was little, he had come to every one of her cross country meets, he had opened his home to every one of his grandchildren and more.</p><p> </p><p>Her grandpa was a pillar of the community, of the Tribe. He welcomed everyone into his house and made them feel at home.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry,” said Ander, pulling her against his chest, she closed her eyes and let him comfort her. He kissed her forehead before saying, “I wish I had the chance to meet him, it sounds like he really loved you.”</p><p> </p><p>“He did,” whispered Mackenzie as she felt a sudden wave of emotion hit her, “there are nine of us, but he made sure to know each of us.”</p><p> </p><p>“Nine,” mumbled Ander and Mackenzie felt him put his fingers back into her hair. It had grown quite a bit since her haircut before her move out to Michigan. When she had gone home for Christmas, her mother had more trouble braiding her hair than either of them anticipated, she had missed feeling someone play in her hair, make her new.</p><p> </p><p>She relaxed into his chest, feeling warm as he played with her hair.</p><p> </p><p>The strange feeling she got when she was around Ander never left now. It never disappeared like it did before, never left her.</p><p> </p><p>She kissed him, feeling his fingers still as she wrapped her arms around him. His hands moved over her bare chest, and his mouth followed as he rolled them over so he was on top of her.</p><p> </p><p>“Ander,” whispered Mackenzie as she closed her eyes. “Ander, I love you.”</p><p> </p><p>He stopped and looked up at her, his eyes were like warm chocolate and his lips were wet. Mackenzie knew already what he was going to say, she had been the one on the edge, not him. She was the one who was struggling to say what she needed too.</p><p> </p><p>“I love you too Mack,” whispered Ander, and she knew that she wouldn’t be leaving the room for a while.</p><p> </p><p>Just like saying those three little words, they had been on the edge of finally having sex. Mackenzie didn’t know why, she had slept with Spear the first time on a dare from Leila.</p><p> </p><p>The thoughts of Renesmee, who she saw again at Christmas, still lingered in her head. She had come over during the holidays again, but nothing happened, Mackenzie had pushed her away when she tried to kiss her. Part of her was still attracted to her, still wanted to be with her…but a stronger part of her knew that it was just lust.</p><p> </p><p>She had been in love with Ander even back then.</p><p> </p><p>Ander was gentler than Spear or any of the other boys she had slept with. He kissed her softly as he took off her shorts and underwear. He was less teasing then Renesmee as he kissed her thighs and clit.</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie pulled his mouth up to hers as he pushed off his own shorts and boxers. Mackenzie reached for him when he rolled away and rummaged through his night stand.</p><p> </p><p>“Hurry up,” she whispered as she traced the curve of his spine. She kissed him when he turned back to her, condom in hand. He handed her the little silver package and Mackenzie smiled.</p><p> </p><p>“You hurry up,” whispered Ander and Mackenzie did so, grabbing Ander and rolling the condom on.</p><p> </p><p>She had been sure that it would be awkward, that she wouldn’t be able to focus like whenever she was with Spear. But it didn’t happen, all she could think of was Ander, his chocolate eyes, his copper colored skin, the same as hers, his mouth soft and warm on hers.</p><p> </p><p>He was perfect, it was what she wanted her first time to be, what it should’ve been.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re amazing,” whispered Ander, the same time that Mackenzie was going to say it. “Mack, I love you.”</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie curled up against him, letting him wrap his arms tight around her. She kissed his chest, letting her lips move to his neck, his jaw, his mouth. She was in love with him, in love with him and no one else.</p><p> </p><p>She straddled his hips and kissed him again before whispering, “I love you too, Ander.”</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is surprises.</p><p> </p><p>Showing up when least expected, getting each other coffee before and after class, it’s the big things. She’s not a fan of surprises, she likes to know what’s going on at all times.</p><p> </p><p>But she’ll let herself fall for him, she’ll let herself fall for his surprises, his little gifts and trips.</p><p> </p><p>It’s love, surprising and all consuming, it’s love.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie sighed at the sound of the motorcycle engine.</p><p> </p><p>She grew up riding on motorbikes, just as she grew up fixing and building cars with her dad and brothers and uncles. She wasn’t the only girl who found peace under a broken car, just like she wasn’t the only girl who found peace running on the beach.</p><p> </p><p>In high school, she ran cross country with Lacsey and Leila and Riley and Carli, she got into running because her Aunt Rachel and Auntie Hailey liked to run. She followed behind them, behind Sara and Sorra, the five of them in a line, five feet between Aunt Rachel and Auntie Hailey, ten feet between Sara and Sorra, ten more feet behind was Mackenzie.</p><p> </p><p>She was the only one who didn’t run to forget something. She went to her father’s garage to forget.</p><p> </p><p>She would read the order note written in the chicken scratch that was her father’s handwriting and got to work. Cars, trucks, motorcycles, they were easy, they made sense to her. Taking things apart, cleaning each part, putting it back together, those were the things she was good at.</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie climbed out from under her mom’s SUV and threw her braids over her shoulders. She missed having her mom do her hair, but now that she was home until the end of August, she got her hair braided every day.</p><p> </p><p>She missed being able to tell her mother everything, being able to tell her about her dreams and her worries for the day. She had never kept secrets from her mother before, she knew when she lost her virginity before she even told her.</p><p> </p><p>But she couldn’t help but keep Ander from her. Not because she was worried her mother would approve, more that her mother would know she was serious about him.</p><p> </p><p>Max was miserable, mostly by his own doing, but also because he felt like no would ever love him. He had always felt that way, he once had a crush on Hannah, but he had given up on it when she imprinted on Chris and Chris imprinted back on her.</p><p> </p><p>Marcus had imprinted on Lacsey, Auntie Hailey and Uncle Embry’s daughter. He had always loved her, ever since she was brought back to the reservation and adopted. They were close, good friends before the imprint, best friends after. Now they were engaged to be married, living together and expecting their first child.</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie hadn’t expected to be an aunt by the time she was twenty.</p><p> </p><p>It was better than Harry and Terra who already had three kids, their twins Adam and Aria when they were sixteen and their newborn Allyson. Lacsey was due in July a few weeks before Mackenzie went back to school, but it would still be a few weeks with her niece or nephew.</p><p> </p><p>“Hello!” called a voice, and Mackenzie turned around, cleaning her greasy hands on an equally greasy cloth. Just like her father, her clothes were clean, but her hands were dirty.</p><p> </p><p>“Ander,” said Mackenzie, staring at him. He looked the same and she felt her heart drop, no one knew of him here. He was her secret, kept from her brothers, her parents, even her cousins. He was her home in Michigan, her little bit of peace in such an unfamiliar world. “What are you doing here?”</p><p> </p><p>“I missed you Mack,” said Ander, giving her her favorite smile. Warm and so much like sunlight, the rest of the world seemed dark around them.</p><p> </p><p>“I love you,” she whispered as she wrapped her greasy hands around his neck and kissed him. Everything felt perfect with her lips on his, warm and soft and wonderful.</p><p> </p><p>“I love you too,” he whispered, his forehead pressed to hers. She pulled away from him after a moment, staring up at him. His neck was now covered in greasy fingerprints and she giggled as he tried to wipe them off.</p><p> </p><p>“Let’s go to my house, show me what that noisemaker of yours can do,” said Mackenzie, referring to the motorcycle he had driven in on. Mackenzie put on one of the many helmets they kept in the garage and she climbed onto the old bike that she had seen pictures of over the last few weeks.</p><p> </p><p>She directed him to her own home, down the roads that she had learned to drive on, that she had walked and ran as a child and teenager, every way that led to home. Ander slowed down as they neared the water, she could see the Rabbit parked in the driveway and her dad’s truck on the street. Both of the bikes were parked in the small amount of space by the Rabbit, with both of her brothers leaning up against the car.</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t look at them as Ander parked the motorcycle with the other two. She climbed off the bike and took off the helmet daring her brothers to say something. She felt Ander put a hand on her lower back, and she looked up at Marcus and Max.</p><p> </p><p>“Hi, I’m Evander Masen, Mackenzie’s boyfriend,” she heard Ander say, but she didn’t take her eyes off of Marcus’. Ander once told her that the connection he had with Raelynn was one that neither of them could explain, they were the others best friend, the other closest confidant. It was one thing that she could understand.</p><p> </p><p>“Boyfriend,” said Max and Mackenzie knew what would happen next.</p><p> </p><p>Her secret, her quiet and most wonderful secret, that she had Evander, her Ander, was broken. She wanted him, craved him, loved him, she didn’t know what the imprint felt like, what it meant for her brother, for her friends and family, but what she felt for Ander had to be something stronger.</p><p> </p><p>“Max don’t,” said Mackenzie, trying to hold everything else she wanted to say in. <em>Don’t phase, don’t change, don’t hurt him</em>. “He’s important.”</p><p> </p><p>Saying the words, saying what she felt most; that was all that mattered in that second, because Marcus stepped forward between Max and Ander. It was the same thing she had done for Lacsey, stepped in between her and Max when Marcus told them they were having a baby.</p><p> </p><p>Like Evander and Raelynn, she and Marcus were two halves of a whole, and they would stand between Max for each other as they always had before.</p><p> </p><p>They would stand between each other for everything that mattered.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is tension.</p><p> </p><p>Tension leads to heat, leads to passion, leads to more. It sometimes makes her shoulders tight, makes her breath short, and makes her scared. She hates tension, hates the tightness that hurts her very soul.</p><p> </p><p>She loves Ander though.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie climbed out of her bed and tiptoed down the hall, downstairs, and into the living room. Ander laid across the couch, his hair still in the braids she had put in after dinner, before she had taken him down to the beach.</p><p> </p><p>He looked peaceful in sleep, calm and happy, not tossing and turning like Mackenzie had since she came home. She knew her parents had been worried about her, she had only been able to sleep after running herself tired on the beach every morning.</p><p> </p><p>“Come here,” whispered Ander, opening his arms to her. Mackenzie smiled and climbed into the small space, cuddling into his chest. She had missed him, missed him so much that she couldn’t sleep at night.</p><p> </p><p>“I missed you so much,” whispered Mackenzie, her voice breaking as she felt all of the emotions of seeing him again hit her. Ander wrapped his arms tight around her, holding her against him. He kissed her forehead and rubbed her back as she sobbed into his chest.</p><p> </p><p>“Why do you think I drove all the way out here?” whispered Ander, as Mackenzie wiped at her eyes. “I was going to go camping, but when I started driving, I just kept going. I got to Minnesota and realized that I needed to see you.”</p><p> </p><p>“You told your parents right?”</p><p> </p><p>“I told Rae, and I have quite a few voicemails from my parents,” said Ander, and Mackenzie shook her head, trying to hold back her giggles.</p><p> </p><p>“You called them when you got here right?”</p><p> </p><p>“I called Rae.”</p><p> </p><p>“Ander!” said Mackenzie, a little too loud. She covered her mouth and giggled into his shirt. “Are you serious?”</p><p> </p><p>“Of course,” whispered Ander, over her giggles. “I called Raelynn and told her that I made it and she wanted me to tell you that she misses you and can’t wait to see you at the end of the summer.”</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie rolled her eyes, and looked up at him, she loved him, but it really wasn’t as funny as she knew he thought it was. She blamed it on her own tiredness and the excitement of seeing him for the first time in a month.</p><p> </p><p>“How long are you staying?” whispered Mackenzie, as she relaxed back into his arms. She felt him rest his chin on her head and she closed her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“As long as I’m allowed to, longer if I can camp on the beach,” whispered Ander, even quieter.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re invited as long as I say so.”</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie opened her eyes, she could hear her parents in the kitchen, her father at the stove while her mother made coffee. She climbed off of the couch, Ander was sitting at the table with Max across from him. Already she knew that trouble was brewing, Max wouldn’t do anything with her parents around, or her for that matter, but the second he could get Ander alone.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey there sleepyhead,” said her father, as she went to the coffeemaker, taking one of the cups her mother had prepared. They all took their coffee the same, with creamer and no sugar. “I thought you were going to sleep all morning.”</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie took a sip from her coffee as her mother ran her fingers through her hair, undoing the braids she put in the morning before. “Sorry, I was tired.”</p><p> </p><p>She looked up at her mom, sure to see her disapproving stare, but it wasn’t there. She was smiling her knowing smile, not even looking at Mackenzie, but over her head to her father.</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie pulled away and sat down in the chair beside Ander, glaring at Max over her cup of coffee. “Kenzie,” said Max and she could hear the obvious edge in his voice.</p><p> </p><p>“Maxwell,” said Jacob, and Mackenzie felt her shoulders tense. “Enough. Evander is Mackenzie’s boyfriend, Marcus likes him, your mother and I approve, get over it.”</p><p> </p><p>“Do you not remember Spear?” asked Max, as he tighten his hand around his spoon. “How he treated you? How do I not know he’s like that? Kenzie you don’t eve-“</p><p> </p><p>“Ander would never treat me like Spear did, Max,” said Mackenzie, feeling her shoulders tense even more, she hated confrontation. She hated feeling small, it was hard enough that she was smaller than her brothers, that they were magic unlike her. She hated being the youngest and the only girl, she hated how Max held everything over her head.</p><p> </p><p>Ander put his hand on her knee and squeezed softly, instantly she felt the tension in her shoulders leave. “Max,” said Ander softly, not taking his eyes off of him. “I love Mack, she’s my best friend, my family loves her, she means the world to me. I know how you must feel, I felt the same way when I first met my sister Raelynn’s boyfriend, Nick. I would never hurt Mack, but I know that nothing would make you believe that.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re right,” said Max, letting go of his spoon, it had curves in it that were the same shape of his hand. “I will never believe that you’re good enough for her.”</p><p> </p><p>“Max!” called Mackenzie as he ran out of the house, she stood up to run after him, but felt a pair of hands on her shoulders. She turned her head to see her mom, holding her in place.</p><p> </p><p>“Let him go,” said Leah with a sigh, “he’s just upset you didn’t tell him personally. He’ll get over it soon.”</p><p> </p><p>“He’s so moody,” said Mackenzie in frustration, she sat back down and glared at the table. “Why can’t he just get over himself? He’s been a jerk ever since I came back!”</p><p> </p><p>“Kenzie,” said Jacob as he set a plate of French Toast on the table along with a large plate of scrambled eggs. “Just remember that everyone expresses their emotions differently. Max has had a hard time with your brother getting married and you moving to Michigan nine months of the year. Lacsey getting pregnant has been quite a shock for all of us too.”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know why,” said Mackenzie as she started making a plate. “We all knew that Marcus and Lacsey would have a baby within the year, Max and I were even joking about it during the reception.”</p><p> </p><p>“And I’m sure he thought that it was just a joke,” said Leah and Mackenzie nodded. Max needed to grow up, he needed to accept that her and Marcus’ lives were going to change, that they would change and grow along with it.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sure that he’s just surprised,” said Ander quietly, as he looked down at his plate. “I didn’t know that you hadn’t told your family about me.”</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie looked down at her plate, suddenly not hungry anymore. She had just wanted to keep Ander to herself for a little while, to herself and to no one else. Though she was now sure that her mother had always known.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother always knew everything.</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t expect you to come out here,” said Mackenzie as she played with her food. “I just wanted to keep you to myself for a little longer.”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s okay,” said Leah, reassuringly and Mackenzie nodded. If anyone understood, her mother did.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother always knew everything.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is new.</p><p> </p><p>New people, new families, new experiences. New beginnings and new endings, new life, a birth and a nephew. So sweet and kind, a new boy, a new baby.</p><p> </p><p>A new family to share everything with.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>“Lucas,” said Marcus on the other side of the phone. Mackenzie smiled, she was an aunt now, she had a nephew. She glanced over at Ander sitting on a milk crate in front of his motorcycle, tinkering around with his engine. “He’s so much smaller than I thought he would be.”</p><p> </p><p>“How’s Lacsey?” asked Mackenzie as Ander looked up from his bike.</p><p> </p><p>“She’s good, thank you for not coming around when I called last night, I know it must’ve been killing you,” said Marcus and Mackenzie clenched her fist. She would’ve left with her parents when they went to the hospital to be with Lacsey and Marcus, but something in her heart said no.</p><p> </p><p>“I was worried about the three of you,” whispered Mackenzie, biting her lip and frowning. “But I knew you didn’t want me around.”</p><p> </p><p>“Terra and Carli didn’t come either, it’s okay,” said Marcus and Mackenzie nodded, before realizing that he couldn’t see her. “Come by this afternoon, I want you to meet him.”</p><p> </p><p>“I think I can do that,” said Mackenzie, looking over at Ander. “Is it okay if Ander comes?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” said Marcus and she could hear the smile in his voice. “Hey Kenzie, can I tell you something?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, anything,” said Mackenzie, as she unclenched her fist, she looked down and saw the little curved shape of her nails in her palm.</p><p> </p><p>“I like him,” said Marcus, and Mackenzie smiled. “I’m happy for you, I think he’s a good fit. I know Max is being dumb, but when did we ever care about his opinion? I want you to be happy, and I know he’ll make you happy.”</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie nodded again, sure that he knew. “Thank you Marcus.”</p><p> </p><p>“Anything Kenz.”</p><p> </p><p>She hung up the phone and turned to Ander, he stood up as she started crying, coming to sit beside her as she sat on the floor. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead as she tucked her head into his shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>“Is everything okay?” asked Ander, as he rubbed her back. “Is the baby okay?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” whispered Mackenzie, as a sob escaped her lips. “His name is Lucas. He was happy I didn’t come with mom and dad last night. My first nephew and he didn’t want me to be there, I don’t think he wanted mom and dad to even be there.”</p><p> </p><p>“Does he want you to be there now?”</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie nodded, pressing her face into his neck. She didn’t know where this sudden emotion was coming from, why she felt so small.</p><p> </p><p>“He said to come in the afternoon,” Mackenzie told him, and now she wanted to be anywhere but in the garage.</p><p> </p><p>“So we have a few hours,” said Ander, standing up and dragging her up with him. “Let’s find something to do.”</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie followed after him, out of the garage and down the road. The houses around them were all familiar, all familiar and homey and what she needed to see. They walked, him in his riding jacket, her in her favorite overalls from the garage, her fingers covered in grease and his clean with dirty fingernails.</p><p> </p><p>The graveyard was more a formality than in actual use. Her grandfather was sent off in a canoe into the ocean, like all of the dead were in the Tribe. But his gravestone stood tall and new.</p><p> </p><p>She sat down in front of the stone, someone had placed fresh flowers on the grave. All of them took turns putting flowers in front of his grave, during the summer and during the rest of the year.</p><p> </p><p>“Does it still hurt?” asked Ander, as he sat down with his back pressed against hers. “Because any time I go to visit my grandmother I feel like I can’t breathe.”</p><p> </p><p>“I can barely breathe now,” whispered Mackenzie, as she reached behind her and took both of his hands in hers. “He promised that he would be waiting for me when I came back.”</p><p> </p><p>“I wish I got to meet him,” whispered Ander and Mackenzie felt her heart surge.</p><p> </p><p>“My cousins still live in his house, Sara and Sorra came back after they graduated, Raymond never left, and Riley still hasn’t graduated high school,” Mackenzie told him, already she could imagine the little red house that she grew up in just as much as her own home.</p><p> </p><p>“And?” prompted Ander, she tipped her head back, letting it rest on his shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s red, worn down and sad, but it’s home,” whispered Mackenzie, seeing the red house, remembering her first day of school after the funeral. She had been all alone, without Marcus, without Billie or Riley, the only Black left.</p><p> </p><p>“Home,” agreed Ander, and she could see his house, blue and bright, new and shiny even after ten or more years. “I think after we go to see Lucas, you should come back to Michigan with me.”</p><p> </p><p>They had talked about him leaving the week before school started to take his bike home and pack up his things for another year down in Ann Arbor. They were going to be in the same dorm building, not the same room, but only a floor away instead of a block away from each other.</p><p> </p><p>“It won’t be long, just a week or two,” said Ander and Mackenzie smiled, happy that he couldn’t see it. “Rae will be so happy to see you and my parents have been asking about in every voicemail that they’ve left.”</p><p> </p><p>“If I agree,” countered Mackenzie, “will you actually call them, or will we surprise them worse than you did when you came out here?”</p><p> </p><p>“If I call, will you talk to my mom before she can yell at me too much?” asked Ander, and Mackenzie heard herself giggle.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, I will,” she said, unlacing their fingers and wiping at her eyes again. “But we need to go somewhere before we go to see Lucas.”</p><p> </p><p>“I want to see your grandfather’s house,” said Ander, and Mackenzie knew that she was in good hands. She stood up and took his hand again, pulling him along and leading him away from the empty graves, from both of her grandfathers, and the grandmother she was named after.</p><p> </p><p>Two of the three she would never meet, never would get to know, never would get the chance to know. Her Grandpa Billy told her all the stories of their people, including the ones she didn’t want to believe, until she knew them all by heart. He once called her the next great storyteller of the Tribe, she would be an Elder, more deserving than either of her brothers.</p><p> </p><p>Her cousin Billie was the singer, she knew all the songs, more than Mackenzie knew the stories. She sang after the funeral, Mackenzie’s mother’s influence, she had asked Billie to sing the song of the Great Flood, a story that Mackenzie could tell in her sleep. Billie sang, she was a better storyteller than Mackenzie ever could be, ever would be. Billie sang of the past, Mackenzie only studied it.</p><p> </p><p>Sara and Sorra, along with Jessica and Billie and Riley were all at Grandpa Billy’s house. Their grandfather had six granddaughters, all of them were different, none of them got along as well as they were supposed to.</p><p> </p><p>It was always Sara and Sorra together, always Billie and Riley together, never Jessica and Mackenzie together, not unless James or Marcus or Max were with them. The six of them could be together easily, but the six of them were barely family.</p><p> </p><p>Except at Grandpa Billy’s, though he was never magic, he brought the family together.</p><p> </p><p>“Everyone,” said Mackenzie taking a deep breath, everyone knew Ander, he had been with them the whole summer. He had come to bonfires and barbeques and all the little get togethers they had on the beach or cliffs or in backyards, but they had kept their distance. “This is Evander Masen, my boyfriend.”</p><p> </p><p>She could see Grandpa Billy nodding, smiling as he rolled forward in his wheelchair and reached out to shake Ander’s hand. He would laugh as Ander made a joke or given the right kind of handshake that Spear or Renesmee never would’ve given him.</p><p> </p><p>She was ready to run away.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is time.</p><p> </p><p>Time spent with him, with her family and friends, with his family and friends. Time spent away from home, away from the world she knew, away from him. Time spent in between, on road trips and in classes and everywhere their not together.</p><p> </p><p>Time is her watching Lucas grow up into a small person, watching her sister-in-law get pregnant and give her Eve, a niece. Watching her sister-in-law get pregnant again and give her a second nephew, Oliver.</p><p> </p><p>Time is graduating and going to graduate school in Olympia, closer to home, her home. It’s living with him, in a world that she loved, a world that she knew.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>“I want to have a baby.”</p><p> </p><p>“You graduate in five months Mack,” said Ander, as he untied the horrible tie he had to wear for his own classes. “I graduate in five months.”</p><p> </p><p>“We’re engaged,” she told him, holding up his grandmother’s ring on her left hand. “We’re going to get married this summer.”</p><p> </p><p>“Is it because Lacsey just had Oliver?” asked Ander, as he unbuttoned his shirt. “Or is it because Raelynn is pregnant again?”</p><p> </p><p>“I want us to have a baby,” said Mackenzie, crossing her arms as he took off his shirt. “I want us to have more Ander.”</p><p> </p><p>“So do I,” said Ander, sitting down on his side of the bed to take off his socks and dress pants. “I want us to be married and have a house and-“</p><p> </p><p>“I just want to stop taking my birth control,” whispered Mackenzie, as she sat on the opposite side of the bed. She felt divided, she felt so uncertain and scared, the last time they fought, had been during their sophomore year.</p><p> </p><p>She had gone home for Christmas, and he wanted her to come home with him. She had gotten a ride with someone else to the airport, and he drove up north to his home.</p><p> </p><p>She texted him when she landed, but they didn’t talk more than that. They didn’t call, they didn’t text or IM, they didn’t email. Instead, she stayed with her parents, she cuddled with Lucas and threw herself into the family.</p><p> </p><p>Renesmee came over, Mackenzie kissed her but couldn’t make herself go any farther. She felt dirty and sad and scared, like she was losing Evander, her Ander. She jumped on the first plane she could to Michigan, not even caring about the price.</p><p> </p><p>She rented a car and got lost, having Ander come get her and take her back to his house, to his parents.</p><p> </p><p>Ander turned around, and Mackenzie felt her heart skip a beat. He had a blazing look in his eyes, one that she only saw once before, during Raelynn’s wedding. She felt her hands shake as he reached for her, locking their fingers together.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you sure you want a baby? With me?”</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie smiled at him, for the first time in their relationship, he was the unsure one and she was the one who knew what they wanted. She climbed up on the bed and he followed suit, letting her pull him into her arms.</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t often that she got to comfort him.</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie ran her fingers through his hair, it was shorter than he ever had it in his life. She didn’t like it, but slowly and surely it was growing out. She leaned forward and kissed his temple as she brushed her fingers along his jaw and cheek.</p><p> </p><p>“Are you sure, Mackenzie?”</p><p> </p><p>They never used their full names, they were only for others, for family and friends and classmates. Mackenzie and Evander were the names chosen for them, Mack and Ander were the names they gave each other.</p><p> </p><p>“Evander,” whispered Mackenzie, turning his head so he could look at her. “I want to have a family, to have a baby with you and make our world a little brighter.”</p><p> </p><p>“Our world is already pretty bright Mack,” said Ander with her favorite smile. She smiled back, before leaning down to kiss him.</p><p> </p><p>“We don’t have to do anything today,” she whispered when she pulled away, resting her forehead against his. “We don’t have to do anything tomorrow or next week or next month-“</p><p> </p><p>“Stop taking your birth control,” whispered Ander, and Mackenzie closed her eyes and he wrapped his arms tight around her. He rolled them over, so he was suddenly on top of her, straddling her hips. “Who am I to stop you from doing what you want?”</p><p> </p><p>“Ander,” said Mackenzie, as he kissed her cheek and jaw and neck. “I want this to be a decision that we both want, not something that just I want.”</p><p> </p><p>“You just told me that you wanted a baby Mack,” said Ander, staring her down, his eyes still like melted chocolate. “I want to give you everything, that’s the deal we have.”</p><p> </p><p>“The deal is that we <em>both</em> give and take,” said Mackenzie, grabbing his shoulders and rolling them both back over again. She was reminded of playing with her brothers and cousins when she was little, roughhousing and wrestling with each other. “I won’t do anything unless you also want what I want.”</p><p> </p><p>“You and I will be married in less than six months, Mack. You will be running the cultural center in La Push, while I will be teaching music at the middle and high schools,” said Ander, grabbing at her shoulders to roll them over again. “We have a house already too, even though we told your brother it was too much.”</p><p> </p><p>“He’s going to cash in on us to babysit,” she told him, as she lost and he rolled them back over. He loomed above her and smiled down at her, lacing his fingers with hers. His grandmother’s ring glittered in the overhead light, it was simple and pretty and something that she could pass down to a future son or daughter. “I hope you’re ready to be a full time uncle.”</p><p> </p><p>“I already am an uncle,” said Ander and Mackenzie giggled, thinking about Raelynn’s daughter Maria. She was beautiful and adorable and loved Ander more than her own parents, though he gave into everything she wanted which helped.</p><p> </p><p>“And you could be a father,” she whispered as he shook his head.</p><p> </p><p>“Let’s do it,” said Ander and Mackenzie smiled.</p><p> </p><p>“Really?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is a joining.</p><p> </p><p>Friendship, relationships, marriage, and births. Two people, two families, coming together, becoming one. Family becoming more, the welcoming of someone new.</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie Sarah Black and Evander Jacob Masen.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie stared at herself in the mirror.</p><p> </p><p>She was wearing a wedding dress, it was a simple sundress, worn by Hannah and Leila, by Terra and Lacsey, by Jessica and Billie and Natalie, by Collie and Carli and Carolynn. It was a simple sundress, with a bit of old lace and a slightly aged bodice, pieces of it were from the dress their mothers’ wore when they married.</p><p> </p><p>It had become tradition for the Pack brides to wear the same wedding gown. A simple white sundress with lace, but it looked different on everyone.</p><p> </p><p>Billie and Terra and Natalie had all been pregnant when they married and Hannah was taller than all of them so the hem of the dress hung above their knees, on everyone else it was longer. It hung above Mackenzie’s knees too.</p><p> </p><p>Her bust was a bit bigger than any of the other girls, other than Jessica, but it still fit how she wanted it too. The fabric of the skirt did nothing to really cover her baby bump, but the family, the Pack all knew she was pregnant when she visited on spring break.</p><p> </p><p>She sighed and touched her stomach, she was too big for one baby, even two. Ander had fainted when the news of triplets, <em>triplets</em>, had come to them. Three babies, all at once, it was almost too much to handle.</p><p> </p><p>“How do you feel?”</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie turned around to look at her cousins. Sara and Sorra had slipped into her bedroom and were sitting on the bed together, Jessica lean against the wall with a hand pressed to her own stomach, and Billie and Riley both took up a side of the door frame. There were six Black granddaughters, all of them were different, none of them got along, but they all came together when needed.</p><p> </p><p>“Like I’m going to throw up,” she told them as she turned back to her mirror. Her hair was braided with ribbons and feathers and flowers and seashells. It was the only thing keeping her on the ground. “But it’s been like that since I was six weeks out.”</p><p> </p><p>She felt a kick against her stomach, something that was still so new and still so wonderful. When the three of them all kicked her, Ander liked to press his face to her stomach and talk to them.</p><p> </p><p>“It gets easier,” said Jessica and Billie laughed. Billie already had two kids and Jessica had three with one set of twins. “Though multiples do suck.”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know how Hannah did it,” said Mackenzie, and she glanced over at Sara and Sorra who both laughed.</p><p> </p><p>“Our mom had twins and kept going, so did Aunt Rachel,” said Sara with a large smile.</p><p> </p><p>“We still don’t know why she had Raymond,” said Sorra with a matching smile.</p><p> </p><p>The unspoken ‘and Riley’ was loud and clear, but no one said anything about it. Mackenzie still didn’t quite understand the four of them, she loved them, they were family, but she didn’t have any sisters. She didn’t understand Sara and Sorra’s hate for their younger siblings, for Riley, especially because they were the only ones they had left.</p><p> </p><p>“So sorry that I’m such a burden,” said Raymond, from behind Riley and Billie. Mackenzie stared at his reflection in the mirror above her. He still looked the same as when he first phased, only with a few more small lines around his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>To everyone else in the Pack, phasing had left them lost in some ways, but Raymond found peace. He was the only boy between three sisters, and he was older than Max, Jessica and James.</p><p> </p><p>“Ray,” said Sorra, but he just rolled his eyes and pulled Riley against his chest. “It wasn’t like that.”</p><p> </p><p>“Of course,” said Raymond, pushing farther into the room, Riley still against his chest. Sara and Sorra were always together, and in a way so were Raymond and Riley, when the twins pulled away from the world, from everyone, Raymond and Riley grew closer.</p><p> </p><p>“No fighting before the wedding,” said James, taking Riley’s spot beside his sister. Behind him, Mackenzie could see both of her brothers’ reflections in her mirror.</p><p> </p><p>“Funny James,” said Max and even Mackenzie rolled her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“Cold feet yet?” asked Marcus as Billie stepped forward beside her sister and Marcus pushed James out of his way.</p><p> </p><p>“No,” Mackenzie told him, as she turned away from the mirror to look at her family. Ten Black grandchildren, six girls and four boys. She could remember easily the last time they had all been gathered in one room together, just the ten of them, no one else.</p><p> </p><p>Her first day of school after the funeral, the ten of them in their grandfather’s house, watching TV and trying not to fall apart. The ten of them didn’t get along, they were all too different, but they were family, they fell in together.</p><p> </p><p>Max had their mother’s eyes, but Mackenzie and Marcus shared James and Jessica’s eyes, he shared Raymond and Riley’s eyes. Mackenzie and Billie and Sara and Sorra all had the same smile, their grandmother’s smile. Marcus and Jessica and Raymond all had the same ears, while James and Max and Sara and Sorra all had the same nose.</p><p> </p><p>They could all find something in common with one another, they all had at least one small detail that they shared. A smile, a laugh, a set of eyes, a pair of ears or hands. All of them were the same and all of them were different.</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie only shared her last name with her brothers; Sara and Sorra, and Raymond and Riley were all Finaus; while James and Jessica, and Billie were all Lahotes. Underneath it all though, they were cousins, they were Blacks, they were family.</p><p> </p><p>Ander was coming into the family.</p><p> </p><p>“Mackenzie!” said Raelynn from just outside the door, peeking around James with her daughter on her hip. “You look so beautiful.”</p><p> </p><p>She rushed into the room and wrapped Mackenzie into a one arm hug as well as she could with Mackenzie’s bump and her own bump in the way. Mackenzie smiled, she had grown to love Raelynn as she did Marcus and Max. Raelynn would be her first and only sister.</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you,” said Mackenzie, as she took Maria from her arms and held her. Maria loved Mackenzie because she always saw her with her favorite Uncle Evander, who gave her everything she wanted. “My mom did my hair.”</p><p> </p><p>“I meant your dress,” said Raelynn, reaching out and touching the soft fabric of the shared wedding dress. “But your hair is also beautiful. Your mom told me that all of you friends wore this dress when they got married.”</p><p> </p><p>The last wedding dress had been retired and carefully taken apart after Claire had got married to Quil. Auntie Cali had carefully taken it apart and sewn together the dress that Mackenzie was currently wearing for Hannah’s wedding to Chris.</p><p> </p><p>“Raelynn,” said Mackenzie, as Raelynn turned to look at the others in the room. “These are my cousins, Sara and Sorra, James and Jessica, Raymond and Riley and Billie. And my brothers Marcus and Max.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh I know,” said Raelynn giving Mackenzie her favorite smile of Ander’s. “EJ has told me all about everyone.”</p><p> </p><p>“Plus she’s the Best Man, Kenzie,” said Marcus, holding out his arm to Raelynn. This wedding was unconventional in many ways, including Marcus being Mackenzie’s Maid of Honor and Raelynn being Ander’s Best Man.</p><p> </p><p>“What are all of you doing up here?” asked Leah, from the door frame, and as quickly and easily as her cousins came, they all disappeared.</p><p> </p><p>Max stayed, along with their mother, they were going to walk her down the aisle. Her father was preforming the ceremony.</p><p> </p><p>Hannah got to wear the wedding dress first and she got to be married by Grandpa Billy last.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m so happy for you,” whispered Leah, as she took Mackenzie’s face in both of her hands. “Evander will make you very happy.”</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie smiled and glanced over at Max, he had been opposed to Evander since he had showed up that first summer. But Mackenzie knew that he had warmed up to him, Ander had a way of getting everyone to like him.</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” said Mackenzie and Max smiled, holding his arm out to her. Out the open window, she could hear the music start and Billie singing.</p><p> </p><p>“I think we’re ready,” said Max and Mackenzie looped her around through his. She was ready, ready to be with Ander, ready to have his name, to be with him until their dying day.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is the countdown.</p><p> </p><p>Eight, seven, six.</p><p> </p><p>Five, four.</p><p> </p><p>Three.</p><p> </p><p>Two, one.</p><p> </p><p>The Masens.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie held her daughter close.</p><p> </p><p>She had three daughters, Luna, Andromeda, and Molly; she also had three sons, Bill, Sirius, and Regulus. Three and three, six was their number.</p><p> </p><p>Molly looked up at her with Evander’s eyes and her smile. She always thought it strange to see her own features in her siblings, in her cousins, in her aunts and parents and uncles. But seeing herself in her in own children, seeing her eyes, just like her mother’s, seeing her smile just like her father’s, it made her happy, it was proof that they were hers.</p><p> </p><p>Her children were Blacks, just like her and her brothers and cousins, her parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles. Being a Black didn’t seem to mean too much anymore. The memory of her Grandpa Billy didn’t hurt as much as it used too, but there were still times that it struck her to her core.</p><p> </p><p>It happened at least once a day when she gave a tour of the cultural center, when she told the story of the Great Flood. It had been her favorite when she was younger, she would crawl up onto her Grandpa Billy’s lap and listened to his voice fill the room, whether it was full of people or just her.</p><p> </p><p>Rarely his house had just him in it. It was never empty after Aunt Rebecca and Uncle Solomon died. But he still craved out a time for her, for Marcus and Max, for James and Jessica and Billie. She always loved that about him, he always gave his time to those who asked for it, for those who wanted it.</p><p> </p><p>Time was all he could give.</p><p> </p><p>“Mama,” mumbled Molly, and Mackenzie smiled down at her again. Their house was never empty now. It was full of noise and music, Ander teaching their children all of the instruments he knew, and learning how to play the ones he didn’t. Her three sons were loud, constantly fighting and laughing and yelling. Her daughters were the same, but with the yelling came whispers so quiet no one would know the secret.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh Baby Girl,” whispered Mackenzie as she walked over to the rocking chair Marcus gave her after the triplets were born. Oliver hadn’t liked to be rocked, so it got passed on to Mackenzie and Ander to use. Nothing ever went to waste in their life. “You need to go to sleep for mama.”</p><p> </p><p>“No,” she mumbled, but the rocking was already lulling her to sleep.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay,” said Mackenzie, as the door opened in walked Ander. He was carrying in both of their other daughters, Luna and Andromeda.</p><p> </p><p>“How’s it going?” asked Ander, as he put the girls into their assigned beds. Luna never stayed in her bed, always going into the boy’s room and crawling under the covers of Bill or Sirius’ beds. Regulus always seemed to wake up in Andromeda’s bed, curled up with her arms around him,</p><p> </p><p>Molly always stayed put, like the good girl she was, and like how the bars on her crib kept her.</p><p> </p><p>“A few more minutes,” Mackenzie told him as he tucked each of the girls into bed. She rubbed Molly’s belly through her pajamas, just how she liked. Molly let out a long yawn and closed her eyes slowly.</p><p> </p><p>Ander walked over to her and took Molly out of her arms, both Luna and Andromeda were snoring softly in their beds. Molly started snoring in his arms, he had a way of getting all of their children to fall asleep the second he held them.</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie kissed Molly’s forehead before Ander put her in her crib. She then kissed both Andromeda and Luna before going to the boy’s room. Regulus was curled up already, sucking his thumb, Mackenzie walked over to him and pulled his thumb out of his mouth. She leaned down and kissed his cheek, before going to Sirius and kissing his forehead.</p><p> </p><p>Bill was still awake, the only one still awake. He never fell asleep easily, he whined and cried and got too tired, but sleep never came easy for him like all the others.</p><p> </p><p>“Mama,” he whispered, reaching for her. He was eight already, eight and her oldest. He was like an old man, he watched over his siblings with careful eyes and was the one that all of her other children looked to. “I’m not tired.”</p><p> </p><p>It was what he said every day.</p><p> </p><p>“Do we want a story?” whispered Mackenzie, already knowing the answer.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes,” he whispered and Mackenzie smiled, and pushed him over in his bed so she could climb up with him.</p><p> </p><p>The stories varied, but he loved the same stories that she loved. He was named for her grandfather, in her family, at least one of her cousins had a child named after their Grandpa Billy.</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie pulled him in close and kissed his forehead as she stroked his hair. Then she got started, “a long, long time ago, before me or dad or Grandpa Jacob and Grandma Leah, before anyone we know or knew was born, there were the first people of our Tribe…”</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is stories.</p><p> </p><p>The stories we share, the stories we make, the stories we tell to everyone. The stories of their lives, of their family and friends, of each other.</p><p> </p><p>Stories were her family, they were her friends, they were her home and career and life. Stories were the way they communicated, the way they shared their love for one another. Stories were their life and the love they shared.</p><p> </p><p>Stories were love.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie stared at Ander’s shoulders.</p><p> </p><p>She remembered how tense she used to get when she heard fighting and yelling, how scared she used to get. She hadn’t expected him to be so surprised, he knew the legends of her Tribe, he knew her brothers, Max hadn’t aged since he first phased and he likely never would at this point.</p><p> </p><p>He was shaking, she didn’t know if it was from fear or anger or what, but he was shaking just how she had been at the funeral years ago.</p><p> </p><p>“Max said that their okay,” Mackenzie told him, standing back in the door frame.</p><p> </p><p>Ander started shaking harder, his shoulders growing tighter. She wanted to touch him, to hold him like how he did over the years. In the twenty-five years that they knew each other, in the sixteen years that they had been married, she only had to comfort him once.</p><p> </p><p>“They’ll be home for dinner Ander.”</p><p> </p><p>His shoulder relaxed, not by much, just enough for her to know that he was breathing easier.</p><p> </p><p>“I know how you mus-“</p><p> </p><p>“Their monsters Mack.”</p><p> </p><p>That wasn’t how she felt, she had three sons, three sons that would all follow in each other’s footsteps. In the footsteps of her brothers, of her father, of the Tribe. She was considered an Elder now, she told the stories at the Tribal meetings, she took on the position her grandfather had left her.</p><p> </p><p>“Their protectors, Ander,” she told him, taking the steps forward and pressing her forehead in between his shoulder blades. He let out a breath and relaxed as she hugged him. Twenty-five years and she had only been the strong one once before. “They’re keeping us safe.”</p><p> </p><p>“Why though?”</p><p> </p><p>“Because Renesmee is getting married in the area and bringing all of her family and more vampires than have been here since before I was born,” she told him, he tensed up under her touch again, but she reached out for his hand. The feel of her wedding ring against his always made her smile.</p><p> </p><p>“She knows how to mess everything up,” mumbled Ander and Mackenzie shook her head.</p><p> </p><p>Ander turned around and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her against his chest. She reached up and held his face, he looked scared, he was still shaking, but he seemed calmer.</p><p> </p><p>She remembered when Max had first phased, he and Marcus had been screaming at each other, she had climbed under her bed and hid. She hid herself away until Marcus screamed, until he screamed and ran into her room to find her.</p><p> </p><p>When they were scared, they only wanted each other. It was the truth, it was how it was. Even now, she craved Marcus when she was scared, she knew Ander craved Raelynn the same way.</p><p> </p><p>“It was going to happen eventually,” whispered Mackenzie, reaching up to hold his face. She pulled his mouth down to hers and kissed him softly, hoping to calm him more.</p><p> </p><p>“How did you know?”</p><p> </p><p>What was she supposed to say, that she knew because she had heard Max and saw Marcus with her own eyes. She had watched her own parents phase, her cousins, her friends. She had watched and heard and lived with this one constant in her life.</p><p> </p><p>The only constant in her life.</p><p> </p><p>“Because it’s who we are, Ander,” she told him, thinking of the story she only ever told around a bonfire. The legend of the Cold Ones, of vampires. “For as long as the Tribe has been, we have known that we were descendants of wolves. It’s a story that lives in the Tribe, in my family, and in my blood. I was raised to believe in these stories, and it wasn’t until Max phased that I actually believed in them.”</p><p> </p><p>“Why didn’t you…?” trailed off Ander, his eyes turning cold and his hands shaking again.</p><p> </p><p>“Because I hoped that I never would’ve had to tell you. I am not a wolf, I will never phase, and I wished that for our own children, but I wasn’t allowed to tell you until they phased,” Mackenzie told him, taking his hands into her own. “I was also sure that you would run away screaming that I was crazy if I told you.”</p><p> </p><p>“I would’ve never had run away from you,” whispered Ander, pulling her into him. Mackenzie rested her head on his shoulder and let go of his hands to hug him tight to her.</p><p> </p><p>“I wouldn’t have let you.”</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>Love is Evander.</p><p> </p><p>~`~</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Ah, take my love, take it down</em>,” sang Mackenzie as she walked the familiar path from her own home to Grandpa Billy’s house. Raymond and Max lived there now, the two of them the leaders of the Pack, they were also the favorite uncles. “<em>Oh, climb a mountain and turn around</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>She loved this song, it was her parent’s song. For as long as she could remember, her father always sang it after a long day or when he missed her mother.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>And if you see my reflection in the snow covered hills. Well, the landslide will bring it down</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>She remembered her parents dancing at their wedding, they just held one another and swayed together. So happy, so in love, just the two of them together. It was what she always wanted, what she loved most about her parents.</p><p> </p><p>She didn’t know until after her own children were born that her parents came together when they were both falling apart. She had been hit with post-partum depression after having Regulus and Andromeda, only to learn that depression ran in their family.</p><p> </p><p>Her mother fell first, her mother who was strong and scary and smart and beautiful, fell in love with her father like she fell for most things, quickly. She stayed away, she was older, she had known him since they were babies, she was closer to his sisters than him.</p><p> </p><p>Her father ran away.</p><p> </p><p>Like his sisters before him, he ran away to forget the memories that La Push haunted him with. With the return of his sister, came the return of the memories they tried to push back, push away.</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie was named after her Grandma Sarah, a woman she would never know, never meet. Sarah Black had been killed in a car accident by a drunk driver, but she brought life and sunlight and joy to her children. Mackenzie tried to do that, she tried to be the light in the world for her children.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>And if you see my reflection in the snow covered hills. Well, the landslide will bring it down</em>,” she whispered to herself as she opened the door to the little red house she knew almost better than her own.</p><p> </p><p>Raymond sat on the couch with Riley tucked into his side. Sara and Sorra sat on the floor in front of them, while Billie laid across the floor in front of them. James and Jessica, and Max sat at the tiny kitchen table, laughing together. Marcus sat in the chair by the couch, and Mackenzie went to him.</p><p> </p><p>Just like Sara and Sorra, like James and Jessica, Mackenzie always went to Marcus. She didn’t know if it was a twin thing or a sibling thing, because none of them would ever admit it.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you watching?” asked Mackenzie as she sat on the arm of Marcus’ chair. They were all too old to be hiding together in their grandfather’s house. Too old to hide and wander away from their families.</p><p> </p><p>“The old movies,” said Riley, and Mackenzie smiled. The last summer they were all together, when Sara and Sorra were home from school and the rest of them were on break or before they had gone off to college.</p><p> </p><p>Billie had found the camera, she had been playing in the attic, digging through boxes and finding whatever she could use to dress up with. She found the camera, along with a bunch of blank tapes.</p><p> </p><p>They had spent that summer running around the reservation filming each other and having fun. They had videos of bonfires and soccer games and barbeques and Grandpa Billy. Those were the painful ones, the stories he told them, the songs he sang, the light and the life he gave to each and every one of them.</p><p> </p><p>“How’s Ander been since he found out?” asked Marcus, Mackenzie sighed and rolled her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“Better,” Mackenzie told him, all of them. Sharing the Tribes stories, making him listen, it had brought them closer. She knew that Ander understood her, that he loved her and knew her better than anyone, even Marcus, but their sons phasing had almost broke them.</p><p> </p><p>“I told him to ask me if he has any questions you didn’t or couldn’t answer,” said Marcus and Mackenzie smiled.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay,” said Billie, getting to her feet, “should we get going now that Kenzie is here?”</p><p> </p><p>Mackenzie got back up on her feet, over thirty years had passed since Grandpa Billy had passed. Since she got home from school to find her mother on the floor, trying to hide her tears. She couldn’t quite remember the last time they had all been together like this.</p><p> </p><p>Last year, Jessica had been overseas, the year before Billie had been on tour with her band, and Marcus had been in the hospital with Oliver getting his appendix out three years ago. They had all missed each other over the years, seeing each other on and off in that time.</p><p> </p><p>When they got to the gravestone, they weren’t the only ones. Mackenzie felt herself smile at the sight of Ander and her children, but she couldn’t stop the tears. She couldn’t stop the emotion in her stomach from rising as she reached for them.</p><p> </p><p>She had six children, three sons and three daughters, six beautiful and smart and funny and wonderful children. She loved them like breathing, she loved Ander like breathing.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Oh, the landslide will bring it down</em>.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This was my favorite story in the series, and I plan on posting the next three stories when I get them written, no clue when I'll finish. Please send me a message if you have any questions.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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